Of Shems and Elves and other Trifling Things
by Spikey44
Summary: A tale of the last two grey wardens. Bound together by fate, not choice, two very different people must overcome a threat far more sinister than the Blight: each other. Surely if they can survive one another they can overcome anything? Or perhaps not.
1. Chapter 1

**Of Shems and Elves And Other Trifling Things**

_Disclaimer: All characters, names, locales etc. property of Bioware_

**Prologue: The Tainted Dalish**

It was a strange thing for a man to know his death was imminent but not to know how he would die. Violence was most probable, but would he die in battle or torn to shreds by the Deep Stalkers, half-maddened by the Taint in the shadows of some manner of lost Dwarven Thaig? That was the question.

Still the circumstance surrounding his own demise was not the most pressing matter Duncan of the Grey Wardens had to contend with on the day he breached the north eastern fringes of the vast Brecilian forest in search of……well, in search of something miraculous. Surely finding someone worthy of joining the order in a time of Blight could only be a miracle, after all, yet that was the task Duncan had assigned himself and that was the task he would do his utmost to complete.

'Tamlen!'

A shout pierced the stillness beneath the green dappled shadows of the forest canopy. Duncan stopped instantly senses screaming. He tasted old copper and something rank on the tip of his tongue; bile and blood. _Darkspawn_. Where seconds before he had sensed only the silent predators of nature's cruel design hidden in the labyrinthine paths of the forest, now his mind swam with the susurrus whisper of the horde. He started to run without needing to know his destination; the minions of the Archdemon glowed like a beacon in his thoughts, guiding him unerringly towards the sound of piteous, dreadful shrieking.

'Tamlen!'

Leaping over the moss cloven hump of a fallen tree trunk, diving under a thicket of clinging vines, skidding down a sharp embankment and splashing through the thick and muddy slurry of a stream Duncan thundered through the underbrush, wrenching twin blades from sheathes mounted to his back. His robes, common among the men of the Free Marches, tangled in the brush but nothing less than the full might of the horde could halt his progress.

'Tamlen!'

The tree line gave way, thinning out to reveal open sky as the land tracked upwards in serpentine curves. The taste of Darkspawn, all rot and corruption, filled his sinuses and had he been less familiar with the stench he might have paused. As it was he thundered onwards, passing pale hewn cliff face and trampling fragrant Elfroot under his boots as he ran on. He could hear the deep malign rumble of Hurlock laughter just around the next turn in the path.

'Tamlen!'

Whereas the stench of Darkspawn had served only to spur Duncan on the sight that accosted him as he rounded the blind curve of the cliff face and entered a small clearing, did give the veteran Warden pause.

One Hurlock, three genlocks; two archers in the ranks and the other two with swords and daggers apiece; the Hurlock threw back his scabrous head and bellowed a war cry loud enough to shudder the ground at his feet as the archers wrenched back their bows. The dagger baring genlock advanced on one lone elf.

'Die interloper!' The genlock fell back in response to a truly savage kick to the head followed up with vicious speed by a inexpert, but undoubtedly impassioned, sweep of a elven made dagger. As Duncan watched, caught in a frozen second of surprise, the Genlock archers loosed their first volley of arrows, only to find their prey had melted smoothly into the forest shadow. Duncan caught a shimmer flash of wide, wild blue eyes in a bone white face marked with the intricate patterning of the Dalish and then the girl was in motion.

'Tamlen!' The elven girl leapt at the back of the Hurlock wrapping skinny arms around scaly shoulders and slamming dagger points deep into each lung. 'Where is he? Where is Tamlen!' Again and again the tiny elf female jammed her daggers past mouldy leather armour to penetrate soft tissue. She screamed near wordlessly in fury as she did so, enough to make an Ashe warrior proud. Blood arced into the air, black as sludge under a gentle sun. The Hurlock howled, twisted, threw the girl from his back. She hit a tree trunk and slumped to the ground. The Darkspawn turned as one, brandished tainted blades, and advanced on the fallen elf.

Duncan broke free of his paralyse and ran forward, twin blades catching sunlight and reflecting back only the purity of fire in the treated steel. The Hurlock was already mortally stricken and a kick to the kidneys brought him down for good. Duncan whirled, ducked a fresh volley of arrows, and dove for the nearest of the two archers. The first genlock archer's head flew free of his stocky shoulders with just one clean swipe of the warden's blade. The other closed with Duncan, the tainted creature too lost to bloodlust and lacking even the most rudimentary of survival instincts. This second archer fell, sliced open from sternum to abdomen, before it could draw the ugly rusted dagger at its hip.

Something twanged in the back of Duncan's mind; a whisper of warning, come too late. He had forgotten the third and final genlock. Duncan dropped flat to the mossy, uneven ground, rolled on to his back, thrust his daggers forward into the air and kicked with his legs. The last genlock, pinioned like some obscene insect on the ends of Duncan's daggers snarled and wriggled, still trying to rip his face off with lizard-claw hands. That's when Duncan saw her.

The elf girl was up once more. She rose like a shadow behind the wriggling genlock, pale and slick with sweat and sickness, eyes wide and somehow empty, as bright as the summer sky, and her face so terribly, terribly young, already a mask of black darkspawn blood. Duncan almost spoke but had no time before twin Dar'Misu embedded themselves into the neck of the writhing genlock, punching right through and loosing thick, scalding gouts of blood in a deluge all over Duncan.

The genlock went into a single spasm still impaled upon Duncan's swords and then died. The elf collapsed to her knees before slipping bonelessly sideways, falling like a broken puppet almost on top of Duncan. Her spring sky eyes clouded almost white, the cataracts of the Taint forming like frost over the surface of a lake, and then her eyelids slipped closed.

'Tamlen……'

'Maker be praised,' Duncan's exclamation was no less reverent for the fact that he used it to kick the genlock corpse away from him and wipe the gore from his blades on the grass. He had come to these woods in search of the impossible, a miracle no less……and now he had found her.

Kneeling beside the elven girl he rolled her onto her back and checked the pulse at her neck. It thundered like a waterfall, crashing against the thin skein of her flesh. The scent of Taint and rot rose from her callow skin like miasma. Duncan did not know how this Dalish girl had come to be Tainted, but that almost did not matter. All that mattered was that he had found someone worthy of the Grey Wardens and he would not now lose her to the very Blight he needed her to fight.

'Can you hear me girl?' He patted her cheeks as gently as he could, lifting her by narrow shoulders into a half sitting position. Had he not known that a Dalish Clan, the Mahariel, camped nearby Duncan would still know this girl as one of the Elvhen. She had the faintly golden yet impossibly pale skin, like the inner bark of ancient oak trees that many of the Dalish possessed, and of course, there were the blue ink whorls and spikes etched across brow, cheeks, and chin.

'Girl if you can hear me you must speak.' Duncan did not know how far the Mahariel camp was from here and even as he watched he could see the Taint spreading through this girl's veins. Her skin was on fire already, her breathing harsh and hitching.

'Answer me girl!' This Dalish child had fought four Darkspawn even as the Taint burned through her veins. Duncan had not met a more promising recruit since finding Alistair in the Chantry. The thought that he might lose this one now was simply unacceptable. Regretting the necessity Duncan drew back one hand and slapped the girl full across the face. 'Answer me!'

Blue eyes snapped open, burning through the cobweb of tainted white. She stared up at Duncan and right through him. 'Tamlen……touched….the mirror……the mirror…..Tamlen……' She shuddered, almost convulsing and suddenly threw herself forward, heaving violently. Blood and bile and something far worse erupted from her in a choking steaming mass across the grass. Duncan held the girl by the forearms as her body attempted to cleanse itself of the Taint.

'The mirror…..they came from the mirror……' presently the girl stopped vomiting, stomach voided of all it could be. She slumped instantly limp against Duncan's arms. Duncan cradled her in his arms, the girl's eyelids fluttered and he shook her. 'Your camp girl; where are the Dalish?'

Her eyes could not focus on him but she managed to lift an arm and point towards the east. 'Past the river, over the rise….our hunters will find you first…..' she succumbed once more to unconsciousness.

Whispering a soft prayer to the Maker that the girl survived the trip back to her people, Duncan hefted the small elf in his arms and started off in the direction she had indicated. All through the journey he listened to the rasping of the girl's breathing and the unnatural silence of the forest. He could not sense any further Darkspawn but somehow he knew they were there. The Blight was upon Ferelden once more and to Duncan it seemed that the Archdemon itself breathed down his neck. Time was running out for them all and whether instinct or the desperate delusion of a man who knew himself not long from death, Duncan did not know, all he knew was that the girl in his arms could prove to be either the Grey Wardens salvation or their damnation.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter One: The Road To Ostagar**

The road to Ostagar was not an easy one; Duncan wished for the days of yore when Griffin mounts bore Grey Wardens aloft upon the air, and distance was no object. Alas those days were long gone. Matters were not helped by the fact that his travelling companion was not truly well enough for the journey. Over the last several miles their pace had decreased consistently and even now the Dalish girl, his newest recruit, dragged behind him by several yards.

Duncan looked up at the setting sun; he had hoped to make camp a few miles further along the Imperial Highway where he knew some of the landships headed for Ostagar and the army garrisoned there would be camped. Still he did not think the elf had two miles of travel left in her this day.

'We stop and pitch camp.' Duncan told the girl once she finally reached him. He noted that she walked with arms folded across her belly, pale face sallow and jaundiced still with the Taint sickness. She had made not one murmur of protest along the way, never once asking for a rest even when the pain caused her to double up and dry heave along the dusty roadside. At the time Duncan had simply seen this fortitude as proof he had chosen a worthy recruit for the order, now however, as the dusk only stood to highlight how pale and sick she looked, he was moved to sympathy. This girl had yet to see twenty summers by his reckoning; a young age indeed to face a Blight.

'We have travelled enough for one day.' He offered the faintest of smiles as the girl almost sagged with relief.

'I need no pity from you shemlen,' blue eyes bright with fever attempted to melt him to slag and ashes where he stood.

Duncan hid a slightly wider smile. 'And you shall have none.' He agreed. 'Daylight fades. It is only prudent to make camp here.'

'Do not smile at me; I am not a curiosity to be ogled.'

The elf, Mahahlia, glared at him for a moment before turning and leading the way off the road side to a small siding where some other past travellers had created a fire pit and left some gathered kindling. Throwing down her travelling pack the Dalish girl propelled herself into the task of lighting the fire and organising camp with almost savage gusto.

Duncan watched her a moment and entertained the amusing thought of just what manner of pyrotechnics would result when Alistair was introduced to this newest of recruits. Already in the short time he had known the girl, in which time he had been forced to conscript her when she refused to accept that joining the wardens was her only option for survival, Duncan had formed the opinion that Mahahlia was not one to suffer fools gladly. Or, as the case may be, young ex-Templars who liked to play the fool. Their meeting would be illuminating at the very least. Still if Duncan could just convince the Dalish not to gouge out Alistair's eyes with a stick he thought that the rogue elf and the ex-Templar would make a good team. Duncan had an eye for such things thanks to years in the Wardens transforming misfits and outcasts into primed warriors.

'Are you just going to stand there, shemlen?' The girl had the fire lit and was now wrestling unsuccessfully with the heavy, stiff canvas of the tent. Her blue eyes glowed with anger. 'Or do you expect me to fetch and carry for you, as well?' Mahahlia threw a tent pole down on the hard ground. 'That is what you shemlen think, is it not? We elves are nothing but slaves to your whims.'

'I have no slaves and expect no service from anyone.' Duncan sighed. While he could understand Mahahlia's distrust Duncan was growing somewhat tired of her obvious prejudice against him. It could make her difficult to train effectively, especially as the other two warden recruits and most of the wardens already at Ostagar were human. Walking toward the makeshift camp he took up the tent poles and the canvas and began to erect the first of the tents.

Mahahlia watched him without warmth. 'Liar. You forced me from my people. You force me to fight in your wars, Shemlen, and withhold from me my cure.' She hugged her arms tightly around herself, raising her knees and curling up on the hard packed ground with her back to the fire. 'You would make of me a slave,' the girl sucked on the end of one of the tight braids woven into her dark gold hair, 'but I warn you; I submit to no one.'

Duncan sighed, 'The only cure for the Taint is to become a Grey Warden. I have explained all this already Mahahlia. The ritual of the Joining will allow you to overcome the Taint, but that ritual must remain a secret, as it has been since the first Grey Wardens took up arms against the Blight.'

'Hah,' the girl spat out the chewed braid and turned her face away, 'A likely story. You are a false deceiver just as all shemlen are. If it was not for the will of my Keeper I would never have joined you. The Blight can take Ferelden and all the Shemlen lands for all I care.'

Duncan cautioned himself to patience, reminding himself that Mahahlia was but a very young girl still, filled with vainglorious pride to shield her very real fear. 'Be that as it may,' he said evenly. 'I have invoked the right of conscription. You are to be a Grey Warden, and from the moment of your Joining the Wardens shall be your clan.'

'Never!' The girl's head snaked around so fast her braids slapped her face. Blue eyes huge and wet seared into him. 'I will never claim clan with any shemlen. I am Elvhen; I am one of the People. You may have forced me from my family, shemlen, but you will never make me forget who I am and where I come from.'

Duncan rose to his feet, 'There is salted meat in your pack and some fruit. You should eat something.' He walked away from the fire and stood looking out at the night. He could feel the prickling heat of the Dalish girl's eyes on his back.

'Have I offended you, shemlen?' The girl's voice, high and cruelly sweet when lilting with such malice, floated across the still dusk air to his ears. 'Do my words make lies of your pretty stories? Or do you yet possess a conscience? You stole my home from me. You convinced the Keeper Tamlen had died.'

'There was nothing more that could be done for your friend.' Duncan turned slowly back to the fire. 'He had been Tainted as you were, and left untreated….'

'And whose fault was that?' The girl rocketed to her feet, too fast, too sudden in her fury. She staggered face white and bloodless in the flickering firelight. 'You shemlen, _you_ say it was too late, but how is it that it was too late for Tamlen but not for me? Did you think because I am a woman I will be more easily cowed? Is that why you saved me but not him?' Again the elf swayed unsteadily as she trembled by the fire.

'Calm yourself,' Duncan stepped forward swiftly as the elf's knees buckled and she slumped towards the fire. He caught her before she could be burned.

'Let go of me!' Too weak to stand the Dalish still tried to bite and kick her way free of Duncan's arms. He lifted her easily, flung her over one shoulder and carried her from the fire dropping her down hard on the packed earth in cold shadow. Before she could react Duncan dropped down onto his knees, grabbed a fistful of the girl's thick hair to pull her head back and pressed the edge of one of his blades against her bobbing throat.

'You are a Grey Warden now – or you are dead.' He told her calmly. 'You have been chosen for a sacred duty because you have skill, courage, and the will to survive.' The girl was rigidly still in his arms but he could feel the coiled rage deep within her slight frame, waiting to spring. 'I will take any oath you would name that I have not deceived you in anyway. Your friend Tamlen is gone.' Duncan was careful not to say dead, as he knew that a far worse fate had likely befallen the other elf than mere death, but he would not hurt the grieving girl all the more by telling her the unvarnished truth.

The Dalish swallowed shallowly. 'You don't know that.' Duncan moved the blade so the flat and not the edge pressed against her throat as she spoke. He could hear tears in her whispered words.

'Yes,' he said, not relaxing his grip on the back of the elf's head one bit, 'I do know. I have seen the ravages of the Taint before. I know what you are suffering Mahahlia even after your Keeper's ministrations. I know what it would have done to your friend.'

She tried to hide the first sob, locking her lips around the sound and widening her already wide eyes. Duncan let her go finally and walked away, turning his back and pretending he could not hear her weeping as he tended the fire.

When she returned to the firelight sometime later and curled up across from him on the ground she said not a word and neither did he. She ignored the meat he offered and instead nibbled on a small, slightly wrinkled apple without any real appetite. Duncan suspected the Taint sickness was to blame for that. Eventually the elven girl fell asleep watching the fire and Duncan carried her shivering form into her tent. He pretended not to notice that she continued to weep in her dreams.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Two: Fool Lords and Sharp Tongues**

The ruins of the fortress Ostagar surprised Mahahlia. She had travelled all over northern Ferelden and the lower reaches of the Free Marches with her clan all throughout her life. In that time she had seen many ruins and even some living cities, yet something about the spindly, knife like Tevinter towers, the long white stone bridge spanning such an impossibly large chasm, stirred a whisper of excitement in her despite her determined efforts to remain stoically unimpressed.

Of course the distant whisper of cooking fires carried on the breeze from the direction of the king's camp might have had something to do with Mahahlia's curiosity. She was starving; _ravenous_ even. After a week on the road she was ready to start eating dirt if only her stomach did not rebel at the mere sight of food.

'Ostagar was built by the Tevinter Imperium to stand against the barbarian hordes of the south. It is fitting that we should make our stand here, though we face a different foe.'

Despite the fact that Mahahlia had stubbornly refused to speak a word to the shemlen for the last two days, the Warden still persisted in speaking to her, and again, despite herself, Mahahlia could not help listening. This Duncan, for all he was shemlen and a wicked deceitful fiend no doubt responsible for Tamlen's loss, had a way about him that could not be ignored. When he spoke people listened, much like a good Keeper. Still Mahahlia had been known to drive even the Keeper to distraction and so despite the curious look Duncan threw her way all she did was suck on her braid and refuse to make eye contact.

_Childish_. The voice of Tamlen whispered in her ear. _Do you want him to think so poorly of Clan Mahariel; do you think the Keeper would be pleased? _Mahahlia shivered and hunched her shoulders, trotting to keep up with the shemlen's long strides. Tamlen's voice had haunted her dreams for many nights now; it was unfair of him to start haunting her daylight hours too.

'Ho Duncan!'

The clattering of plate mail heralded the arrival of a most unusual group of shemlen. Mahahlia rocked to a halt, eyes widening before she could control the reaction. The man in front of the small procession was quite a sight. His gilded armour, heavy as the skin of a bear, gleamed in the dwindling sunlight of the late afternoon. His blond hair, equally eye catching and equally ludicrous, fell to his shoulders as the man stepped forward in bluff greeting, almost as if he would embrace Duncan.

'King Cailan.' Mahahlia jerked her head towards Duncan as she caught the Warden's stutter of surprise. 'I was not expecting…'

'A royal welcome?' The big sunshine man laughed clapping the warden on the shoulder with one big metal plated paw. Mahahlia watched fascinated as the man prattled inanely while Duncan stood stiff as an old oak beside this gilded fool.

So this preposterous man-child was a king, was he? Hmph. Mahahlia did not know whether to be pleased or disappointed that all her worst expectations of what a shemlen king would be seemed proved correct by this foolish golden man. Still she had no time to consider further as it appeared the Ferelden King had finally noticed her.

'And this must be your new recruit. Ho there friend and allow me to welcome you to Ostagar.' The shem-king stood before her, broad of face and empty of mind, lips skinned back from white teeth. His looming shadow threw her slight form in shadow. Mahahlia cocked her head to the side and stared at him. 'And am I to understand you are of the Dalish?' The king seemed unconcerned by her silence. Or perhaps he was so enamoured of his own voice he did not bother to listen to others anyway? 'A brave and noble people the Dalish; I have no doubt the Grey Wardens will benefit from having you in their ranks.'

Mahahlia continued to stare and the fool king continued to smile, but presently the smile began to wane under the piercing steadiness of Mahahlia's basilisk glare. 'Might I know your name, friend?' The king asked finally bothering to look at Mahahlia instead of merely talking at her.

Mahahlia stared still, 'I owe you nothing human lord.'

The king blinked, surprise painting his face for a moment before his idiot cheer returned full force. 'Hah! Duncan you have yourself a live one here!'

'A-hem, yes your Highness.' Duncan was suddenly beside her and then in front of her, interposing himself between Mahahlia and the king before Mahahlia could say anything more. The two shemlen prattled together once more but Mahahlia only half listened. Instead she turned her gaze outward, looking beyond the king and his retinue of red steel clad guards towards the camp in the ruins on the other side of the gorge. The cool breeze carried the scents of food, steel, and men like some heavy tune thrumming with potential. Mahahlia shivered, rubbing her bare arms.

'I am beginning to wonder if this is even a real Blight. We have seen plenty of Darkspawn on the field but no hint of any Archdemon.' The king was pacing back and forth, armour squeaking in agitation.

'Disappointed, your Highness?' Mahahlia wondered if the shem-king could hear the dust dry note of sarcasm in the warden's voice. Curious Mahahlia watched the two men more closely. Did Duncan recognise that his prime ally was an imbecile?

'I had hoped for a battle like in the tales; the king of Ferelden and the Grey Wardens united together against the hordes of evil.' The fool king sighed evidently deeply disappointed. 'I must go before Loghain sends a search party out for me. No doubt he wishes to bore me with his strategies.'

'Yes for only a fool would enter battle with a plan.' Mahahlia smiled when the shem lord turned to stare at her. Duncan once more stepped into the breach blocking her sight of the king. Mahahlia snickered behind his back. Hahren Paivel had always said of Mahahlia that she was as perfect as a Dalish could be – right up until the moment she opened her mouth. Mahahlia had always taken perverse pride in proving Paivel right, whether by telling the wrong sort of tales to the da'len of the clan or by putting fools in their place.

'King Cailan is right,' Duncan spoke as soon as the king as his retinue were out of ear shot, 'the army has won their last three engagements with the enemy.'

'Then you are proved a liar in your calls of Blight, as I suspected.' Mahahlia inspected the chewed end of her braid mildly as Duncan raised both thick black brows at her. 'Perhaps the fool lord is right and this is not a Blight. Perhaps you are just a silly old man seeking glory where none is to be had?'

'When you are a Warden you will know the error of your words.' Duncan spoke stiffly and ignored the sunny smile, which was still somewhat savage, flung his way by the insolent Dalish girl. All in all Duncan thought the meeting between Mahahlia and Cailan had gone quite well. No one was dead, after all. 'There is much to fear from the coming Blight; and much to do to prepare for your Joining.' He added pointedly stopping before the long causeway across the chasm.

'A hot meal would be nice.' Mahahlia pointed out archly feeling quite magnanimous that that was all she chose to say at this moment. She folded her arms across her chest and tilted her chin up imperiously. Duncan stifled a smile. Despite the girl's surliness and acidic tongue there was something strangely endearing about her.

'You are feeling better I see; good.' He nodded. 'There is a little time to spare before the Joining; though you must be ready before nightfall.' Gesturing for her to precede him the pair started across the bridge towards the main fortress.

'The king's camp is across the bridge; you will find food there. Once you are ready I would like you to seek out a Grey Warden by the name of Alistair. I have things to attend to before the Joining but once you have found Alistair return to me. I shall be by the central pyre.'

'I am to be released from your tether, shemlen?' Mahahlia widened fey eyes at him. 'You are so tired of me already?' A tiny smile played at the edges of her lips as she shoved her sodden braid back between her teeth. Despite himself Duncan almost laughed. The girl was a peculiar bundle of slyness and sharp edges, and quite pretty when she wasn't glaring daggers at any and all humans to cross her path.

'You may go where you wish in camp. All I ask is that you do not try to leave it.'

'Hmph,' Mahahlia tossed her head. 'I make no promises to you shemlen.' Throwing a sly look over her shoulder to Duncan she quickened her pace and moved forward to explore this human encampment. Angry she was still, but the hunters of home had taught Mahahlia well that one caught more prey with sweet syrup than cold steel. She would play nice for now and then when she had her cure, she would be gone from here. She owed the Grey Wardens nothing but the vilest of curses, after all.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Three: Bringing People Together**

Fifteen minutes within the shemlen war camp and Mahahlia was less than happy. Every shemlen she met thought her nothing more than a slave, and she had already had to have words with the quartermaster in regards his attitude towards elves (she suspected today was the first day in the shemlen's life he had ever had a elf threaten to castrate him). The incessant barking of dogs grated on her nerves and she had yet to find anything she considered edible to eat. Her stomach had started to hurt again too. The pain robbing her of what little appetite she had left.

Finding a low wall to perch on Mahahlia watched the ebb and flow of shemlen rushing hither and thither. There were elves here too but they were not like her. These were cowed and servile creatures, barely elves at all. She watched them scurry back and forth to their shemlen masters beck and call. It made her angry and sad. She had never felt more alone. Her Clan was so very far from her now; separated from her by more than distance alone.

'So is there any service I can do for you?' A wheedling shemlen voice rose above the general hubbub attracting Mahahlia's attention. 'This could be your last night alive, after all. Tomorrow that pretty face could be decorating the end of a Darkspawn axe.' The voice came from a man in light leather armoured tunic. The shemlen man had dark hair and a thickly stubbled face. The female soldier unlucky enough to have attracted the letch's attention did her best to ignore him. Mahahlia grinned, forgetting her pain and leaning forward to cup her chin in her hands as she watched closely.

'Shall I take your silent glare as a no then? Pity.' Eventually the man gave up his pursuit and the female shemlen beat a hasty retreat. The man turned around and ended up looking straight at Mahahlia, who was highly amused by this failed mating. His eyes widened in surprise to find a strange elf girl grinning at him.

For some reason the shemlen reminded her of Tamlen for a brief instance; not in appearance, Tamlen had been fair of face, but in his crest fallen demeanour. Tamlen had been equally hopeless when it came to attracting a mate. At least until the day Mahahlia had taken pity on him and relented to be his. Or rather, she had allowed _Tamlen_ to be _hers_. The smile left Mahahlia's face then, washed away by icy chills. Tamlen; she had left him. _I will come back to find you. _She whispered to the ghost of her lost companion whom she knew lurked somewhere in her thoughts. _I will not give you up for dead. No matter what any shemlen says. _

The failed lecher sauntered over, brazen eyes taking in every exposed inch of Mahahlia from her bare dangling legs, her dalish boots and gloves, to the points of her ears barely visible through the thick mass of her hair. 'Hello there. An elf; wasn't expecting that.'

'What were you expecting shemlen?' Mahahlia hoped for malice but only managed a tired sort of resignation. The quartermaster had shown her what to expect from the shemlen of this camp; the same sort of prejudice she found everywhere beyond the clan.

'Not an elf,' the man told her boldly, 'or a woman.'

Mahahlia thought about kicking him in the chest as he came close to where she perched on the wall and let his eyes linger on her thighs. She was tired and sick however so she didn't waste energy on being offended. He was a shemlen; they were all alike.

'Who are you?' She asked tiredly instead. This shemlen seemed to think he knew her and did not appear to be one of the soldiers. Could this be the Grey Warden Alistair?

'Name's Daveth,' He said cheerfully, still not bothering to look up into her face. 'Are you the new recruit Duncan was waiting for? We've sure waited long enough for you.'

Mahahlia blinked, 'You are a Grey Warden?'

'Only a recruit,' the man grinned before returning his gaze to her thighs. 'Like you. There's another one like us here somewhere. Ser Jory his name is, but I wouldn't waste time on him. Dull as dishwater.'

Mahahlia cocked her head to the side, 'I was told to find a shemlen called Alistair. I was not told of you. Or this Ser Jory.'

'An added bonus for you then,' Daveth's grin was crooked, his teeth stained. 'So do you know about this Joining?'

'No.' Mahahlia paid closer attention shifting on the low wall and twitching the leather skirt she wore a little further down her legs. Daveth watched the process closely, of course. 'Do you?'

The lecher leaned forward, ostensibly so he could whisper to her but also so he could try and peer down her leather vest. 'I was sneaking around camp last night and I heard some of the grey wardens talking, right?'

Mahahlia nodded for him to continue, resisting the urge to drive her bony elbow into his throat as his hot breath rasped over her shoulder and his eyes remained glued to the shadowed mounds of her breasts hidden under her vest. 'Well I heard them talking,' he paused for dramatic effect, 'and I think they're going to send us out into the Wilds.'

'So?' Mahahlia cocked her head to the side. 'The Wilds do not frighten me.' In fact she would be pleased to get out into the woods again, away from all these shemlen.

'Barbarians, Darkspawn, witches. These don't frighten you?' The shemlen looked incredulous. Mahahlia thought about pointing out that she was of the Dalish the perils of the wilderness were common to her but decided against it. _Catch your prey with sweetness, Ma'li _Tamlen whispered in her mind.

'I will watch your back if you watch mine.' She told the shemlen, stifling the urge to grit her teeth as she did so. The thought of working with shemlen did not sit well with her one bit, but she understood necessity. She just didn't like it.

The shemlen, Daveth, laughed. 'Oh I'll watch your back alright.' Once again his eyes did not manage to lift to her face so he did not see the narrowing of Mahahlia's eyes.

'Try not to get too distracted back there, shemlen,' She suggested sweetly through clenched teeth, dropping down from her perch. _Or I might just gut you while you are too busy staring at my breasts, _she added silently walking away from Daveth to the tune of his appreciative chuckles.

It was time to find Alistair.

******

Ten minutes later, following the directions of a surprisingly reasonable shemlen soldier, Mahahlia stepped into a large ruin, climbing a slight incline to where two men, one in the robes of a Ferelden mage and the other in splintmail, stood arguing. For some reason it was the armoured shemlen that caught Mahahlia's attention. He was tall and powerfully built and his short cropped hair was touched with sunlight. The sunshine brushed the dome of his head turning his hair into a sleek nimbus of burnished gold to hug his skull. His face was mostly cast in shadow.

'…..yes, I was harassing you by delivering a message.' The tall sun-dappled man drawled as Mahahlia approached on silent feet behind the mage. The insolent man crossed his arms over his chest while a smirk played over the broad planes of his features, still mostly in shadow. Neither man had noticed Mahahlia's approach.

'Your glibness does you no credit.' The mage snarled, an almost palpable aura of annoyance radiating off him.

'Aw, and here I thought we were becoming friends. I was even going to name one of my children after you: the _grumpy _one.'

'Fine I will go.' The mage lost the battle of dominance between them, turning sharply on his heel. 'Out of my way fool.' He growled as he prowled away. Mahahlia watched him stalk past her without a word deeply curious.

'Y'know,' the shemlen male sighed in sing-song fashion. 'That's the nice thing about a Blight; it brings people together.'

Startled Mahahlia eyed the shem curiously watching him take a step towards her, the sun now at his back. Was he talking to her? It seemed he must be as there was no one else around. Folding her arms across her chest in unconscious mimicry of the shemlen Mahahlia cocked her head to the side and studied the shem before her.

'You are a very strange human.'

An easy half smile quirked the man's mouth, 'Yes a lot of people tell me that.' He paused and then seemed to finally _see _her. He frowned a little, looking almost wary, which was laughable as he was clearly armed with a sword half as tall as Mahahlia herself. Not to mention the shem was almost a foot taller than her and looked strong enough to break her over his knee like dry kindling. 'You're not another mage are you?'

Mahahlia stared at him completely bemused, 'Do I _look_ like a mage?' Absently she opened her arms and held them from her body displaying her obviously Dalish apparel, tilting her head up so the sunlight struck her face and lit on the intricate patterning of her clan markings. The shemlen's eyes followed the lines of her body down from her face to her feet and then seemed to stop at about her bare mid-rift on the way back up. She watched fascinated as his ears went red.

'Er….um, no.' The shemlen jerked his eyes from her to stare fixedly over her shoulder. His cheeks were a mottled pink in colour; how odd. He cleared his throat awkwardly. 'No you don't look like a mage…..really you don't.'

Mahahlia continued to stare at this strange shemlen. 'You are Alistair.' It wasn't a question. Somehow she just knew this peculiar shem was the Grey Warden Duncan had told her to find. Mahahlia sighed, no wonder Duncan had been dispatched to steal her from her people if this was the best the Wardens could do.

'I…? Yes, I'm Alistair…?' The shemlen blinked at her startled. 'How did you….Wait, I know you!' The shem stuttered a half laugh. 'You're the new Grey Warden Duncan went to find. I should have recognised you. I apologise.'

Mahahlia was not impressed. 'How would you recognise me, shemlen? We have never met.'

'Er yes, that's true.' The shemlen agreed awkwardly, 'but, um, well…..you're a woman….and an elf. Duncan told me the new recruit was a Dalish woman.'

A tiny smile tickled the edges of her mouth, 'There are many elves in Thedas, shemlen. Some of them are even women.' She pointed out with deadly sweetness.

The shemlen surprised her by laughing, a rich warm sound that invited her to join in. 'Right. I suppose I walked right into that one.' He smiled ruefully. 'Well anyway. I'm Alistair, but you already knew that.' He shook his head. 'I'll be accompanying you while you prepare for your Joining.'

'And if I do not want you accompanying me, shemlen, what then?' Mahahlia almost stuck her braid back into her mouth but resisted the impulse. She did not want to appear childish in front of this strange shemlen. She suspected he was a fool, but she was still wary. After all he didn't need to be all that bright to chop her up into quarters with that big sword of his.

'Oh ouch,' the shemlen contorted his broad features into an aggrieved pout, somehow contriving to look all of five years old. 'That's not very nice. You've hurt my feelings now.'

Mahahlia arched on brow, arms crossed and simply stared up at the shemlen, who cast her in shadow just as the fool king had. She was going to get very sick of spending all her time in the shadow of shemlens that was for sure.

The shemlen, Alistair, began to look a trifle nervous as she continued to stare at him without speaking. 'Y'know I don't think I know your name.' He told her obviously fishing.

Mahahlia smiled. 'I suspect there are many, many things you do not know shemlen.' She turned and started down the incline and the rest of the camp.

'But…..whoa…wait…' she heard the clanking of leather joined metal armour as the shemlen trotted after her; his much longer legs eating the distance between them in two strides. 'Does that mean you're not going to tell me your name?'

'Yes.' She told him, a smile blossoming over her lips. Mahahlia had always enjoyed finding new playthings. Of course there were few people who enjoyed her games, but alas, that was the way of the best sort of fun. Few people could keep up with her.

'Yes?' The Grey Warden peered down at her as he kept pace alongside. 'Yes……you're going to tell me your name?'

'No.' Mahahlia swallowed her smile but it thought to rise again. Perhaps this forced exile from her people would not be so bad, after all? She could have all sorts of sport with these shemlen if they were all as foolish as this Alistair.

'No?' The shemlen's voice rose, cracking a little and his face creased into a mask of abject confusion. 'You mean you're not going to tell me your name?'

'Yes.' Mahahlia's grin escaped her. This was even more fun than telling 'bad' stories to the da'len of the clan behind Hahren Paivel's back. This shemlen was so easy.

'But…' the shemlen's voice rose again, sounding very much like the whines of the mabari echoing from the pen across the camp, 'but that's……that's not fair.'

Mahahlia's laughter rippled across the camp; bright and sharp as an eagle's cry. For a brief moment, delighting in the aggrieved surprise in the shemlen's eyes, she almost forgot her pain and her rage. She strode towards the waiting Duncan in the centre of the camp with Alistair trailing at her heels - and for the strangest instant, Mahahlia felt content.


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: Hello and thank you to everyone reading and reviewing this story. It's scary starting writing in a new fandom and it's so nice to get such a warm welcome. Thank you all bunches! And as is ever the way, all reviews and feedback are rapturously well received ;)_

* * *

**Chapter Four: Kidnappings and Large Dogs**

Duncan's new recruit was a woman. Alistair had to think about this seriously. He had known she was well….a _she _before meeting her because Duncan had said so but still. She was a woman…..and she might end up a full grey warden, just like him. That would be strange. Alistair had never met a female grey warden. At least not one who was more or less his own age. Yes, Alistair concluded, that would be……strange.

'To prepare for the Joining you and Alistair will go into the Korcari Wilds to attain three vials of Darkspawn blood….' Duncan was immediately interrupted by Ser Jory, who had grown more and more nervous about the whole thing as the days waiting for Duncan to return had drawn on. Alistair frowned lightly, Ser Jory was a worry. Alistair knew that the chances of making it through the Joining were not good at the best of times but if Jory wasn't one hundred percent committed…..well that could be bad. Really bad.

'Hmpth, I'm the bravest one here….and I'm a woman.'

Alistair's attention snapped back to the bickering recruits. The _woman _had spoken. He watched her cross her arms over her chest (not that he was looking at her chest or anything) and toss her hair. Alistair was rather taken with her hair. Thick and rich, the woman's hair (he still didn't know her name) rippled in wheaten shades of honeyed brown and gold. He watched her chew on one of the long braids dangling down to frame her face while she waited for Duncan to continue.

'Collect blood; find treaties,' the elven woman once again interrupted Alistair's daydreaming. 'Understood. Can we go now?' She shifted her weight from one hip to the other. Alistair was distracted by the taut play of muscle across her smooth mid-rift; did all Dalish show so much flesh? Was that even sensible in a battle situation; should he say something to her about it? No, no definitely not. He may not know much (or anything at all) about women but he really thought criticising her clothing choices might be a bad idea. Maybe he could mention it after she agreed to tell him her name?

'Yes it is best you move swiftly while you still have daylight on your side.' Duncan was saying and Alistair realised he should really start paying attention. 'As the newest Grey Warden, Alistair will be your guide.'

Alistair stood a little straighter and tried to look properly sober minded and dignified, not that he needed to bother, only the elf looked at him and that was only to smirk around her chewed braid. Alistair deflated a bit. Was it horribly unmanly to admit, even to himself, that the elf woman with no name unnerved him just a little bit? There was just something about the way her big blue eyes fixed on him that made him feel about two inches tall.

'You are all Grey Wardens,' Duncan spoke gravely. 'I hope I don't have to remind you to behave as would be expected of the order?'

Alistair opened his mouth to assure Duncan that he would of course uphold the honour of the order (no more sassing mages for him) but before he could form the first syllable of any assurance the elf woman laughed.

'So you require me to kidnap someone as well?' She spat out her braid, 'For is that not what you did to me, shemlen?'

'Kidnap?' Ser Jory started like a new born colt. 'He kidnapped you?'

The elf girl tilted her chin up, a truly evil smile playing at her lips, but her withering gaze remained rooted to Duncan even as she tossed a casual reply to the anxious knight, 'Did you think I was here by choice?'

Alistair blinked in surprise. Duncan had not said much about the Dalish recruit in his dispatch missive from the road. In fact he had only said that he had conscripted a recruit from a Dalish clan and that the recruit was a woman (it went without saying that she was also an elf). Now Alistair had to wonder if Duncan's reticence was due to his usual taciturn nature, or if it had been for some other reason. It was true that they needed more members to fight the Blight but, well, kidnapping people didn't seem like a good idea at all.

Duncan sighed deeply. 'We have spoken of this Mahahlia.'

_Ma-hah-li-ah_? Was that the woman's name? Alistair's darting gaze went from his mentor to the new recruit. He saw her eyes narrow and her chin tilt a bit higher (she was so much shorter than the rest of them that Alistair wondered if she was getting a crick neck having to look up all the time). _Ma-hah-lia _he strung the four syllables of the name together like worry beads on a thread. Mahahlia. Mahahlia. Alistair almost smiled. The name had a nice ring to it.

'As you say shemlen,' Mahahlia twisted on her heel, squeezing between Jory and Daveth and slipping from the circle. 'But just because you persist in your lies does not mean that I shall believe them.' The Dalish prowled away watched by the four men. Daveth whistled tunelessly through his teeth.

'Feisty, ain't she?' he grinned.

Ser Jory shook his head, 'I had heard the Dalish were…..savage and uncouth….but I had never….'

Duncan placed a hand on Alistair's shoulder. 'Watch her Alistair.' The elder grey warden spoke in low tones as the other two recruits drifted off following Mahahlia's trail.

'Watch her?' Alistair turned to face his mentor, his friend, his well…..anyway, he looked to Duncan. 'What did she mean you kidnapped her? You didn't kidnap her; the Grey Wardens would never….'

Duncan shook his head, 'I was forced to use the right of conscription against her. She would not consent to join the order.' Duncan's eyes followed the small elf as she strode through the camp like a wandering storm cloud, trailed by Daveth and Ser Jory.

'Really?' Alistair was torn between following the elf and the other two with his eyes and Duncan. To Alistair's knowledge a number of wardens had been conscripted instead of joining voluntarily, that was how Alistair had gotten free of the Chantry, in fact, but in all the cases he knew of the conscription had been enforced in the recruits best interest. An example being, saving Daveth from a public hanging; the idea that someone would be forced to join the order against their will, well, that was bad in so many ways.

'So,' Alistair could barely believe he was saying this, 'She's sort of right then? You did kidnap her in a way.'

Duncan frowned withdrawing his hand from Alistair's shoulder, 'I had no choice; had I not acted she would have died.' He shook his head. 'I have faith in this one Alistair. I believe she has what it takes to be a Grey Warden - I believe she will be needed in the coming Blight.'

'Oh,' Alistair said, 'right then.' He didn't know what else to say. Duncan was not one to give praise that hadn't been earned. He smiled crookedly. 'Well wish us luck.'

Duncan's eyes were still on the Dalish girl, who had become sidetracked by the Mabari pen. 'Yes,' he conceded dryly. 'You'll need it.' Somehow Alistair had the impression he wasn't talking about the Darkspawn in the Wilds, either.

******

Mahahlia was silently seething. It had been foolish to say such a thing to Duncan in front of the other shemlen, but then, Mahahlia did not always control the run of her own tongue. Sharp as a serpent's tooth her acid wit had the tendency to burn her as often as it did her targets. The Keeper had wasted hours and hours cautioning her to temperance and it had yet to make any difference.

The keeper…..hahren Paivel…Tamlen; all gone now. Lost to her. Clenching her fists Mahahlia felt the muscles of her arms band and flex as she strode through the battle ready throng trying to ignore the two shemlen trailing her like addle-brained wolf pups. She wanted to scream; she wanted to crawl into a dark hole and weep. The pain in her stomach was a constant gnawing burn, eating away at her minute by minute, hour by hour. She was tired and hungry and scared and lonely. She was so very, very far from home. But she would not cry.

The loud, raucous barks of a half dozen dogs finally distracted Mahahlia from her own misery and she realised that she'd come to a stop just before the Mabari pens. The smell rising from the pen did nothing to improve the disposition of her stomach. She wrinkled her delicate nose and was just about to move on when someone spoke.

'Not good. I'd hoped he'd start to improve by now.' Another Shemlen stood just beside one of the pen gates, arms folded across his chest and expression creased in concern. Curious Mahahlia wandered closer, rising on tip toe so she could see beyond the fence into the pen.

'You there,' the shemlen turned then and saw her. He beckoned her forward. 'You're a Grey Warden, right? You wouldn't be able to do me a favour would you?'

Mahahlia crossed her arms over her twisted stomach and cocked her head to the side. So far this shemlen had not mentioned her elven nature or demanded she serve him. If nothing else he had earned a moment of her time. Plus listening to him allowed her to ignore her own misery another minute longer. 'I'm listening.'

'This hound is sick,' the shemlen pointed into the pen. 'His master died in the last battle and the poor brute's sick from Darkspawn blood. I need you to go into the pen and put this muzzle on him.' The man jingled a leather and steel muzzle in one hand. 'You're a grey warden so the taint won't affect you.' The man hefted a four foot spear that had been resting against the fence with his free hand. 'If the dog goes for you I'll fight it off with this. So what do you say? Will you help?'

'Sick from the Taint?' Unconsciously pressing a hand to her stomach, feeling the dry fever burn of her own skin, Mahahlia moved a little closer despite herself. She peered into the pen.

A big brown Mabari, tall enough that standing his head would be level with her shoulder, crouched mournfully in the far corner of the pen. She could hear the wheeze of its breathing and the pain glow in its dark eyes. A sympathetic lurch of nausea broiled in her gut; she knew what it felt like to be sick from the Darkspawn taint. Pressing the hand to her stomach a little more firmly Mahahlia hesitated. The dog watched her with solid black and doleful eyes. He whined miserably. She knew exactly how he felt.

'Very well,' she sighed. 'I will help you.' She spoke more to the dog than to the man, but it was the man who wasted a smile of gratitude on her before passing her the muzzle and opening the pen.

Mahahlia took the muzzle, stuck her daggling braid into her mouth, and stepped into the pen. The huge sickened hound rose from his haunches to meet her, lips peeling back from yellowed fangs in warning. A low but thunderous roar reverberated up from that massive barrel chest to trickle from between the dog's savage maw.

'Don't worry none,' the pen master assured her still safely outside of the pen, 'I've got your back.'

The Mabari's thick legs quivered with the effort to stand, red tinted viscous beads of saliva trailed from foam flecked gums. The dog wavered where he stood, black eyes rooted to hers.

Mahahlia reached out one hand towards the poor beast; the hand of kinship and suffering shared. The dog quivered, twitched his ears, sniffed her hand and then chuffed a low bark before collapsing onto his side on the filthy pen floor. As gently as she could Mahahlia lifted the dog's huge head and slipped the muzzle on him.

'I know,' she whispered close to the dog's ear. 'I know what it feels like.' She thought about what the shemlen keeper had said. This dog had lost a master just as she had lost a clan. Tears stitched Mahahlia's lashes. She pressed her lips to the top of the dog's smooth domed skull. 'I am sorry for your loss.'

The dog rolled dark and inky eyes up to hers and whined, legs kicking against the straw and excrement covered floor. He nudged his head into her hands; sympathy given and shared. Mahahlia smiled.

'Thank you lethallin.'

* * *

* _According to Wiki 'Lethallin' is Dalish/elven for 'friend of mine'. Spikey44_


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Five: Pain and Mercy**

Deep in the Korcari Wilds things were going about as well as could be expected, which was to say everything was bloody carnage.

'Do you have no concern for your own existence?' Mahahlia snarled through gritted teeth, twisted fluidly at the waist and hips, ducked under the sweeping arm of a sword wielding Hurlock, kicked the fiend in his rotten man-hood and cleaved the creature's head clean from his shoulders as he staggered back from her.

Blood arced into the air in a foul smelling fountain; it hit her face, her chest, her shoulder and arm as she turned. Not that Mahahlia paid much heed. Instead she ran forward to where a trio of genlocks menaced Daveth. Running in a low crouch Mahahlia launched a kidney strike to the nearest genlock before kicking the legs from under the next, which proved enough of a distraction so that Daveth could finally notch an arrow into his short bow and fire the shaft into the left eye of the last genlock.

'The little bugger tried to bite me,' Daveth stared at his forearm wide eyed. Mahahlia sheathed her twin dar'misu and roughly grabbed the bow from his hands.

'Do you know nothing of archery shemlen?' she manoeuvred the bow in her hands notched an arrow, took swift aim at the back of a genlock haring away from Alistair and Ser Jory and fired, all in one irritated, perfectly practiced motion. The arrow twanged into the genlock's back knocking the creature face first into the dirt. Alistair planted his sword deep into the creature killing the last of the ambush group.

Daveth was watching Mahahlia and smirking when she thrust the bow back into his hands. 'Marry me.'

Tossing her hair out of her face Mahahlia rolled her eyes, 'Learn to shoot straight shem or next time I'll _feed_ you to the darkspawn.'

Daveth only laughed, assuming she merely jested. Alistair was waiting for her crouching beside the fallen genlock with the arrow shaft embedded in his back. He held out a small glass vial to her. 'Just the one vial to go,' he smirked through the blood spattering his face, hair and armour. 'Want to do the honours?'

'You try my patience shemlen.' Kneeling down beside him she snatched the vial, shoved the genlock over onto its side and drew her blade to slit the creature's throat. Dark and stinking darkspawn blood poured over her hand as she held the vial against the sluggish flood. So far she had bled each of the Darkspawn they had used to fill the vials. The squeamishness of shemlen males sickened her. No wonder Ferelden was imperilled by a Blight. 'Is this not what _you_ are here for? You are the only true grey warden here.'

'Yes well, you seem to _enjoy_ slitting throats so much I didn't have the heart to stop you.' Alistair snapped at her taking the vial from her hand and wiping off the excess blood before corking it and secreting the vial in his pack with the others. Mahahlia eyed the shemlen curiously.

'Are you still offended that I killed the downed soldier, shemlen?'

The grey warden's brows shot up his forehead, 'Offended? Am I _offended_ that you slit the throat of an injured man as he begged for help?' He stared at her. Mahahlia stared back impassively.

'Yes that is what I am asking.' She confirmed waiting for his response.

The shemlen man's face contorted into a mottled confusion of anger and upset. 'Maker's breath,' shaking his head he leapt to his feet, almost recoiling from her. 'Let's just get going. We don't have much daylight left.'

Mahahlia rose slowly, frowning. 'We are none of us healers.' She argued thoughtfully. 'If you had wished to save the man all you had to do was act.' She pointed out reasonably. Alistair wheeled on her.

'Is that before or after you slit his throat?' His voice rose quavering and overhead a large black raven cawed loudly before taking wing. The bird made a lazy circuit above them, still crowing, almost as if it mocked them.

'Before of course,' Mahahlia could clearly tell the shemlen disapproved of her actions yet he had done nothing to stop her when he clearly could have at the time. Mahahlia had taken no pleasure in ending the wounded soldier's life. She had acted as she would back with her clan. Had any of her brethren been so stricken and so far from any aid, and she herself so ill-equipped to give aid, she would have done the same service to them as she had the soldier. It bothered her that this strange grey warden would _judge _her for an act of mercy.

She met his eyes coldly. 'I am a recruit, you are the warden. If you had given an order I would have followed. Instead you left the choice to me and now bemoan my choices.' She narrowed her eyes stepping close to the shemlen. 'Either lead or follow, shemlen, but be warned, one shem throat is much like another to me.' She smiled, showing teeth.

Once more the fool shemlen seemed to almost recoil from her. 'You're insane.' He told her, not for the first time.

'And you are spineless.' She retorted. They glared at each for a moment more. Mahahlia saw a dozen angry thoughts flit behind the shemlen, Alistair's, eyes yet he did not speak his mind. Mahahlia shook her head disgusted. Her stomach hurt, her head ached, her bones throbbed. If she had acted wrongly then why had none of these shemlens acted when there was still time? Was this how all shemlen behaved; silently condemning but never acting?

They marched on in silence after that. Mahahlia clutched her hands to her stomach as they tramped over undulating terrain thick with downed and fungus sprouting tree trunks and boggy swamp. The spindly bones of ancient ruins poked up through the knotted canopy of the forest, but there was almost no sound. The silence made Mahahlia shiver; a forest should be alive with the sounds of the creatures hidden within, yet the Wilds watched them still, silent, resentful.

'So,' Daveth broke the uncomfortable silence, 'what's a Dalish doing all the way down here, anyway?' He leered at her. 'Wanted to get a taste of what the rest of Ferelden had to offer did you?'

Mahahlia turned to glare at him, opened her mouth on a withering retort and doubled over in pain as a spike of pure agony tore through her insides. Gasping airlessly she barely felt it as her knees buckled and she hit the ground. Vision burned away in biting shards of black and white, bile seared up her throat and her stomach revolted. All she knew was endless pain. The last thing she saw before everything fell away was the big black raven perched on a low hanging branch watching her with golden eyes as it raked a vicious curved beak through its chest plumage.

*****

It was official, Alistair decided, everything was going wrong. First the Dalish elf ends up being an evil, stab-happy savage girl-fiend and second he now thought she might be dying.

'What's wrong with her?' Ser Jory hovered above Alistair as he knelt beside Mahahlia trying to hold her still as the elf thrashed on the ground moaning in agony. Daveth stood on a rise a few feet away, bow drawn and ready but most of his attention was on the drama happening at Alistair's feet.

'Is she dying then?'

'How would I know?' Alistair snapped as he touched the elf's skin. He was shocked by how hot and dry it was; how had he not noticed the burn of fever in her cheeks until now? A trickle of blood seeped from her nose, sluggish and thick. Using his teeth Alistair pulled the gauntlet from his hand and laid his palm across her brow. It burned. Shocked recognition coursed through Alistair from his toes to the crown of his head as he gently turned Mahahlia over onto her back so he could slip a palm behind her neck and raise her gently from the ground.

'I….I think she's Tainted.'

'But how can that be?' Jory demanded. 'She's killed more of the fiends than any of us, and they barely nicked her.'

'I don't know,' Alistair confessed softly, 'Perhaps it happened before she came here. Perhaps that's why she's here.' Mahahlia was light as a feather (well almost) in his arms. He watched her eyelashes flutter a mile a minute and noticed how sunken and shadowed her eyes were; how sallow and pale she was. Her head lolled against his shoulder and it seemed like her lips formed words, slurred and thick in her fever dream.

'Please Tamlen…….please don't touch the mirror……don't leave me….'

This was all starting to make a lot more sense. It occurred to Alistair that this was the reason Duncan had forced conscription on the elf; she was dying of the darkspawn corruption. 'The Joining can save her.' Alistair murmured on a breath as the pieces came together in his mind. then he thought over his statement, winced and amended it. 'Or kill her even more dead.'

'What?' Daveth had the keen hearing of a natural eavesdropper. Alistair pursed his lips into a thin line before he gave away more than he should. He shook his head and did his best to adopt his "firm grey warden" voice.

'Daveth carry Mahahlia; Ser Jory you take the rear guard and I'll take point. We need to find those treaties and get out of here - fast.'

Alistair moved to off-load Mahahlia onto Daveth (who happened to be the most useless of the four of them in combat – and that was taking into account the fact that Mahahlia was unconscious right now). The inept pickpocket took a hasty step back and waved his arms as if to ward him off. 'Oh no you don't mate; the pint-sized madam's already threatened to feed me to the spawn. I'll not be caught with me hands all over her when she wakes up.'

'What are you talking about man?' Alistair frowned and then glanced at Ser Jory who shook his head vigorously.

'I agree with Daveth…..I have a wife, and a child on the way, it would not be seemly to carry another woman.' Jory refused to look Alistair in the eyes.

'I can't believe it,' Alistair stared at both men, 'You're afraid of her!'

'Too bloody right we are,' Daveth agreed emphatically. 'Have you seen the way she grins when she lops off Darkspawn heads?'

Alistair opened his mouth to argue, or maybe order the two men to do as he said, and that was when Mahahlia stirred in his arms. Her blue eyes snapped open, wide and fearful, and every muscle in her small frame rang taut with tension. Alistair had a single frozen second to realise just how bad the next few moments would be before Mahahlia balled her fist and conked him straight in the nose.

'Unhand me filthy shemlen!'


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Six: Swooped**

Mahahlia awoke confused and the first thing she saw was the face of a shemlen staring down at her. She reacted without thinking, without really knowing what she did or where she was. Her fist connected with the shem's nose hard enough to send the reverberations of impact bounding back up her arm.

'Ow!' Alistair dropped her cupping both hands to his nose. Mahahlia fell heavy as a stone to the mossy, boggy ground at his feet. She leapt up instantly and drew her blades.

'Whoa,' Alistair danced back a step, surprisingly nimble for one in plate mail. Ser Jory and Daveth scattered so fast one might have thought the entire darkspawn horde had descended on them. 'Don't – I was just trying to help!' Alistair stared at her. 'You collapsed. I was _carrying_ you to find aid.' Although his words were muffled by his hands cupped to his nose it was still possible to hear the heavy reproach in his tone.

Mahahlia cocked her head to the side, breathing heavily as the last few moments of memory came back to her. She remembered pain and burning. She remembered a raven with golden eyes. Slowly she straightened up and sheathed her twin blades.

'I am fine now,' she said stiffly, tasting blood and bile on her tongue. She willed herself not flush in embarrassment or show any sign of further weakness in front of these shemlen. She tossed her hair, tucked her damp chewed braid behind one ear and rolled her shoulders. 'We need to get moving.'

The three shemlen males stared at her with identical looks on their faces. 'And that's it?' Alistair dropped his hands from his nose. 'No "thank you Alistair for taking care of me while I convulsed on the ground?" No thank you for not, oh I don't know, slitting your throat while you lay there?'

Mahahlia gave him a withering look but could feel heat climbing up her cheeks all the same. She narrowed her eyes and tilted her chin imperiously. 'I did not ask you to help me, shemlen.'

Without letting him reply she stalked away following the faint beaten path through the wilds. She ignored the aggrieved muttering she could hear behind her back as the other three hurried to catch up with her.

Mahahlia chewed on her braid and traipsed along the boggy path with arms crossed over her chest. A stilted, ugly pall of silence hung over the heads of their unlikely party. Every now and then Mahahlia would flick a sideways glance over to Alistair only to see him deliberately look away, trying to hide the fact that he'd been looking sideways at her too. Alistair's nose was red where she had punched him and her knuckles were bruised. Strangely her stomach didn't hurt so much now and fifteen minutes after her seizure she just felt itchy with embarrassment. The shemlens had seen her weak and vulnerable and now she felt raw and exposed. And possibly somewhat guilty; Alistair had been – kind – to her and she had not been very kind in return.

The sunlight spearing through the forest canopy and sliding around the edges of the crumbling ruins was already tarnished and old. Long shadows stretched in every corner hiding a multitude of sins by the time they reached their destination.

'Look there – what's that chest?' Daveth broke the silence and pointed out a battered wooden chest in the corner of the ruin they had stumbled into. When none of the men made any indication of movement Mahahlia sighed and walked over to crouch by the chest. All the little hairs on the back of her neck stood on end in that exact same instance. A lilting but innately mocking voice floated over her head.

'What have we here I wonder? Scavengers come to pick amid the bones of a carcass long since picked clean?'

Jumping to her feet and spinning around on her heels Mahahlia was surprised by the sight of the raven haired shemlen woman. Cocking her head to the side she studied the woman in her burgundy rags curiously. The woman's hair gleamed rainbow ebony in the dying sun looking for all Thedas like the sheen on the feathers of a blackbird. The woman prowled around Mahahlia before perching on the fallen down wall in front of them. Mahahlia felt the men cluster together at her back, not so much offering support as trying to hide in her shadow.

'Speak then,' the stranger demanded, 'What are you? Scavenger or intruder?'

Mahahlia almost smiled, 'Neither. Merely a wanderer.'

A sharply defined dark brow arced up, 'Tis so? But you look like a scavenger come to poke about my wilds.'

'And how are these your wilds shemlen? Do you lay claim to that which existed long before you were born and will maintain long after you too are nothing but bones?' Mahahlia was amused. The Dalish would defend their camp from shemlen intrusion but they did not lay claims to the land. The land was eternal, wild and free. No one could own it.

The woman narrowed odd amber eyes at Mahahlia clearly not appreciative of such an answer. Mahahlia had the strangest feeling all at once that she had seen those eyes before, amid a face of feathers perched over a long and savage peak. She blinked in surprise and opened her mouth to demand to know who, or what, the woman was.

'Careful,' Alistair's low breath of warning brushed against the back of her head. 'She looks chasind; there could be others about.'

Instantly the woman's strange eyes rooted on a new target and flashed with sudden triumph spying easier meat. 'Ooo do you fear barbarians will swoop down upon you?' The woman threw up her thin arms, wrapped in worn leather straps.

'She's a witch,' Daveth hissed, 'She's a witch of the wilds, she is.'

Mahahlia almost turned her back on the strange woman just to snap at Daveth to shut up, but Jory beat her too it. Needless to say the whole encounter went down hill from there. The strange woman delighted in belittling the three shemlen males, until that is the woman tired of her own game and fixed her attention once more on Mahahlia.

'And what of you? Surely your woman's mind is not so weak as theirs to fear such tales? Tell me your name and I shall tell you mine.' The glint of challenge flashed in those peculiar, alien eyes.

Mahahlia felt her own smile stretch across her face. She knew just how to unbalance this woman. Politeness would prove her undoing. 'Aneth ara; I am Mahahlia. Pleasure to meet you.'

Behind her back she felt Alistair react in surprise to this courteous greeting even as she watched an almost sour expression dance across the stranger's face before she too controlled her reaction and smiled thinly. 'Now that is a proper greeting, even here in the Wilds. _You_ may call me Morrigan.'

'Ma serannas, Morrigan.' Both women smiled falsely at each other before Mahahlia continued. 'You wish something of us?'

'Tis you that wish something of me, in fact.' The woman flicked her jewelled eyes to the men behind Mahahlia, 'Or from my mother. Something that is here no longer.' She added dangling tantalising hints that Alistair was fool enough to fall for.

'Here no longer?' Mahahlia felt the shemlen bridled in instant outrage. 'Those treaties are Grey Warden property I demand you return them immediately…..ooof.' Mahahlia's elbow managed to find the gap between his splintmail chest plate and gouge into soft tissue. 'Shut up shemlen.' She hissed softly through her teeth. Morrigan smiled.

'I can take you to my mother,' she offered with false simper eyes still hard as stone. 'Follow me if you wish.' Morrigan slipped into the underbrush as completely as any wild creature could.

'This could be a trap.' Alistair frowned at her stony jawed. He did not look happy.

'She'll put us in the pot she will,' Daveth insisted wide eyed.

'If the pot is warmer than this forest it will make a nice change.' Jory silenced the panicking pickpocket.

Mahahlia and Alistair continued to glare into each others eyes, 'Fail in our mission if you want to shemlen,' she smiled sweetly at him, baring teeth, 'but I intend to find those treaties.'

Without another word Mahahlia pivoted on her heel and strode into the underbrush after Morrigan. In moments she too had vanished as smoothly into the verdant shadows as Morrigan had.

'Hey wait…don't just….' Alistair sighed rolled his shoulders and gritted his teeth, which made his throbbing nose throb all the more. 'I think I really hate that woman.' He muttered under his breath before stumbling into the tangled brush after the two women, Ser Jory and Daveth bickering at his back.

This was going to a very long day.

*****

'Oh don't mind me; you have what you came for.' The haggard old woman, Morrigan's mother, cackled at some hidden joke. Mahahlia watched fascinated by this strange shem as she juggled the rolled up parchments in her arms. Amid her own people the use of magic was considered a sign of favour from the gods. Keeper Marethari and Follower Merrill were both users of magic and revered in the clan; Mahahlia did not understand why the shemlen males she travelled with had reacted so strangely to the presence of two strong women with magic.

Now as Morrigan grudgingly led them back towards the shemlen camp at Ostagar Mahahlia's curiosity finally got the better of her. She sidled up alongside Alistair as the dusk shadows lengthened into night.

'What is an…..apostate?' She murmured in low voice she was fairly sure Morrigan could not overhear.

Alistair startled beside her, jumping in his armour. He blinked at her almost sheepishly. 'What? Oh, er, an apostate is an illegal mage; one that isn't part of the circle of Magi and therefore not under the watch of the Templars.'

Mahahlia's brow creased, 'I do not know what these words mean. Are shemlen mages not born with magic, as some of the elvhenan are? How can being born be wrong?'

'Ha,' Morrigan stopped just ahead as they entered a clearing in the forest where it was possible to see the spiny shadow of the Tevinter ruin of Ostagar and the twinkling of camp fires stitched against the blanketing darkness of the sky. 'The templars and the Chantry would have us believe it were so. Any mage who uses magic without the leash of the Chantry is condemned.'

Mahahlia stared from Morrigan to Alistair who grudgingly nodded in agreement. 'It isn't quite that bad,' he admitted awkwardly, 'but that's mostly how it is.'

Mahahlia was agog, 'What strange people you are, shemlen.'

Morrigan allowed a moonlight sharp smile to touch her mouth briefly before her usual haughtiness returned. 'Here see. I have led you back to your little war camp. Now be off with you before the wolves and the night fiends tear you limb from limb.' Without another word, or backward glance the so-called witch vanished into the wooded night.

'Brrrr,' Daveth shivered and rubbed his arms, 'She gives me the creeps, she does.' He stared into the darkness after the apostate, 'Can't believe I met a real witch of the wilds – two of 'em!'

Mahahlia eyed him thoughtfully while chewing on her braid. Alistair shook himself tiredly. 'Yes right. Let's just….let's just get back to Duncan.' He sighed and rubbed his nose, wincing as he brushed the blossoming bruises. He turned away before he could see the flash of chagrin upon Mahahlia's face.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Seven: Taint and Submission**

'I am sorry Jory,' Duncan almost seemed to embrace the knight as he drove his short sword into the man's heart. Jory's fingers clutched at Duncan's white robes, tearing at him as his body slipped sideways to the floor of the derelict temple. Jory's eyes were wide, wild, and filled with fear as he gasped his last, blood pumping thickly from his gaping mouth. Mahahlia watched the life fade from behind the knight's eyes.

Duncan, robes emblazoned with the blood of the man he had just killed, turned slowly towards her. He held out the large chalice containing the Darkspawn blood towards her.

'You must submit to the Joining and master your Taint.'

Mahahlia stared up at Duncan. At her back she could feel Alistair still and silent and ready. She watched without a word as Duncan presented her with the chalice. Time stood still and in that frozen moment Mahahlia saw her death in a thousand different facets. She could die like Daveth, poisoned and pitiful, or she could die like Jory betrayed and afraid. Or she could die slowly, minute by minute, from the Taint she already had.

'This is your only choice,' Duncan's dark eyes were steady, unperturbed by the blood dripping down his face. His eyes bored into her own as if he could read her thoughts. Mahahlia felt her own hands curl around the chalice and bring it to her lips almost like a figure in a dream.

The thick liquid at the bottom of the chalice reflected the moonlight and threw it back like the silver of a drawn sword. Mahahlia saw a glimpse of her own wide eyes in the still surface of the blood. Her breath caught and lodged in her throat. This was her death. She knew this suddenly. Even if her body survived the Joining she would never be the same. Mahahlia of Clan Mahariel would be no more and in her place would be a Grey Warden.

All Thedas dwindled into a single point in time; a single shining moment of decision measured out in one long cleansing breath. Was survival worth losing all that she was? Was this not a submission to the will of the very same shemlens her people had sworn never to serve again? Could she do this? Could she fight a Blight? She did not even know what one was, not truly. She had never seen a high dragon, let alone an archdemon.

Mahahlia was afraid; more afraid than she had ever been in her life, more afraid than she would ever be again. The choice seemed too great; the consequences too severe. Her heart thudded in her chest, heavy as lead. The night breeze tasted of ashes and distant rain. She could smell the salt reek of Jory's blood pooling on the old stone floor. She could hear the crackle of the fires and the baying of hounds. Every sound, every taste and sight seemed brighter, sharper, cleaner than it ever had before. Her fingers trembled against the cool beaten metal of the chalice. For a moment she thought of flinging the foul cup to the ground and accepting the kiss of Duncan's blade between her ribs as the lesser evil. For a moment she wanted to drop to her knees and beg for another choice; a different fate. She longed for the comfort of her clan.

Mahahlia closed her eyes and held the chalice to her lips; she did not want to die. More than anything, anything in all Thedas, she wanted to live. When the blood touched her tongue it burned like ice. Then the screaming started and the world exploded into flame.

******

Alistair tried not to shiver as he watched Duncan take the chalice from Mahahlia's limp hands. The Dalish elf had survived the Joining; it was obvious immediately. Still she had yet to come out of the first Dream – as the Wardens called it. Her eyes were open and her breathing steady, but a film of pearlescent white had gathered over her eyes to obscure the natural sky blue colour. Her face was expressionless as Duncan carefully lowered her to the floor and folded her hands across her chest.

'Stay with her Alistair,' Duncan glanced over to him his expression dark and solemn. 'I must prepare Daveth and Ser Jory for burial.'

Alistair winced, the price paid tonight was a heavy one. 'Let me do it for you,' he almost begged the other man, 'you shouldn't have to…'

'No,' Duncan cut him off, 'These were my recruits and my responsibility. Their blood is on my hands.'

Alistair tried to argue further but Duncan eventually simply ordered him to stay with their new recruit. Grudgingly Alistair settled down with his back against the stone altar and his knees drawn up almost to his chin. He watched the stillness of the elf's face; it was impossible to know what horrors she saw in her first Dream of the archdemon. Alistair sighed, pulled out the runic worry stone he had found while on his first official Grey Warden mission and started running his thumb over and over the worn smooth surface.

Yes, this was going to be a very, very long night.

********

In her dream she saw Tamlen. He ran through a nightmare realm of fire, blood, and deepest black and glittering rock. Mahahlia stood precariously upon a shallow ledge of crumbling stone above a narrow, impossibly deep chasm running with molten flame. The heat and fumes itched her skin and made her nose twitch and the rough, biting edges of the cliff face at her back scraped her flesh raw. She edged her way along the ledge inch by inch.

'Tamlen? Tamlen wait for me!'

Overhead hideous creatures shrieked in unholy chorus and cruel laughter guffawed from dark corners. Despite all this Tamlen ran, undaunted. Mahahlia looked up high above her head to where the cliffs pierced the smooth surface of a thousand dark mirrors, just like the one she and Tamlen had found in the ruin.

'Tamlen – wait!'

Her foot slipped and she almost lost her footing completely. The rivers of fire seemed to rise up to meet her for one perilous moment before she managed to catch her balance and right herself. Under her feet the ledge finally widened, opening up into a long stone bridge, lined with spikes. Dismembered corpses hung from those skewers. Still Mahahlia did not stop; Tamlen was just ahead. She could see him crouching down beside a fallen form.

'Tamlen!' Joy filled her. She had found him; she had found Tamlen. They could escape this horrible place together. They could go home. She skidded on something unspeakable as she ran to him, fell to her knees, and her palms slipped in a slick pile of foul smelling filth and viscera as she tried to control her fall. The sound of shrieking grew louder, closer; the monstrous creatures scrambled along the bridge after her, moving like wolves standing upright.

'Tamlen!' She threw herself forward towards him, only thinking of his protection, of their escape. He did not look up as he crouched beside a vivisected corpse. Her hands closed on his shoulder, smelling rot and something dark and cold and corrupt rising from him like a cloud. Why was he touching the bleeding corpse? Why were his hands covered in dark, red and thick things? What was he doing?

'Tamlen?'

He turned around at her touch, and it wasn't Tamlen anymore. Mahahlia recoiled from what she saw. Blood and rotted flesh fringed the creature's teeth as he chewed, open mouthed, on something unthinkable. Empty eyes squinted at her, glinting with dull predatory hunger while gore slathered hands curled into claws, reaching towards her. The hideous creature still draped in the remnant of Tamlen's form opened his mouth wide and shrieked.

Mahahlia screamed and woke up.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Eight: Bearing the Torch of Cooperation **

Mahahlia woke with a start, bolting upright before her legs were ready to support her. She stumbled and would have fallen had the shemlen Alistair not caught her. Blinking back strange visions of half remembered nightmare from before her eyes she looked up at him numbly.

'Shemlen – what?'

'Don't hit me,' Alistair spoke swiftly carefully stepping back from her as she tried to stand on her own two feet. She frowned at him and noticed that his nose was still rather swollen and bruises had begun to darken around his eyes. Oh. A tiny dart of guilt ran through her. She hadn't meant to hit him that hard.

'Ah good, you're awake.' Duncan appeared from the shadowed edges of the moonlight gilded ruin. His robes were still stained in Ser Jory's blood and realising that, Mahahlia cast her gaze around the temple ruin looking for the bodies of the failed recruits. They were gone.

'Where?' Her throat was dry and hoarse.

'Buried,' Alistair told her shortly, eyes averted. Mahahlia pursed her lips. She could not claim to feel much of anything at all regards the fallen men. She had not known them more than hours, and they were shemlen, after all. Still the manner of their death could only invite pity from her.

'How do you feel?' Duncan asked seemingly genuinely concerned.

Mahahlia scowled. 'Ser Jory had a wife and child.' _And you killed him. You lured him here with the promise of glory, kept from him the true nature of the Joining, and then killed him when he objected. _She added silently in her head.

A muscle in Duncan's cheek twitched but all he said, very quietly, was: 'I know.'

Mahahlia stared at the older shemlen; somehow she knew he was answering to more than just the words she spoke. For a moment she saw the huge price in blood and sacrifice this man had paid over the years; she saw it swim behind his dark eyes. That river of blood silenced her condemnations and she bit her tongue against further words.

'Did you have dreams?' Alistair spoke up, strangely earnest. 'I had terrible dreams after my Joining.'

Mahahlia shivered, images half remembered swam once more before her eyes. _Tamlen_. She clenched her jaw and breathed deeply through her nose, pushing the nightmare visions away.

'It's over now,' she told both men brusquely. 'It's done.' And so many things were changed, so many things would be different now. Mahahlia of the clan Mahariel was no more, but she was not ready to simply embrace her new nature as a Grey Warden either.

She stared coldly at the two shemlen, 'What happens now?'

******

Crashing through the doors to the second floor of the tower of Ishal several hours later Mahahlia was getting used to seeing soldiers impaled on spikes, their limbs missing or flung discarded across the blood stained stone of the tower. She was getting used to the vileness of Darkspawn blood soaking into her leathers and stinging her skin. She was even getting used to the throbbing in her head that denoted the presence of more darkspawn. What she couldn't get used to was the constant complaining of her fellow Grey Warden.

'I can't believe this. How did they all get in here? What are they doing here in the tower? The Darkspawn couldn't have known about the tower, could they?'

Mahahlia sighed, trying to scrap a mass of drying black blood from her cheek. 'Perhaps they're lost?' She suggested.

'Right, lost, of course.' Alistair scoffed. 'It's all just a silly misunderstanding. We'll laugh about this when it's all over.'

Perhaps it was the Joining, perhaps it was the fact that the shemlen had said nothing to Duncan about why his nose was swollen and his eyes blacked, whatever the reason, Mahahlia strained to be patient and not snap at Alistair. They were to be allies, seemingly, at least until this Blight was over. Mahahlia might not like it but she understood that until she could return home she must at least try to be civil to the other Grey Wardens. At least when he was hacking darkspawn to bits and knocking them over with his shield so she could stab at them when they were down, Alistair was slightly less annoying. That was something.

'We can ask questions once we're done here.' She offered as a peace gesture. 'Let's just kill everything we find and light the torch.'

The shemlen laughed, 'Right kill first ask questions later; good plan.'

Mahahlia decided that ignoring the shemlen might be the best option from now on. She moved forward cautiously, dar'misu dripping 'spawn blood onto the cold and cracked stone of the ancient tower. By unspoken agreement Mahahlia took point, using the stealth and lightness of foot she had harnessed as a clan hunter to run reconnaissance ahead of Alistair and the silent tower guard and circle mage accompanying them.

They made swift progress and despite the strangeness of the experience (Darkspawn in a big stone tower proving rather different than the wolves and beasts of the Brecilian) Mahahlia couldn't help enjoying the opportunity to practice her combat skills. There were also traps in place here and there in the tower which delighted Mahahlia to no end.

'Look there – trap!' She pointed out the flimsy leghold trap and elbowed Alistair to draw his attention. The warrior merely grunted in affirmation but Mahahlia hunkered down beside the device and immediately set about trying to disarm it. The Dalish did not hunt with traps, finding it dishonourable and needlessly cruel, but every now and then shemlen hunters would try and poach in their territory leaving their traps littering the forest paths. Since childhood Mahahlia had harboured a not so secret fascination with said traps.

'Why does it not surprise me that great big leg breaking traps with sharp pointy metal teeth make you happy?' Alistair smirked as they took a two minute rest to bandage cuts and catch their breath before ascending to the top of the tower. He walked over to Mahahlia who turned a small leghold trap between her hands examining its design with all appearance of rapturous curiosity.

'I don't know shemlen,' she replied breezily, 'perhaps because you are not quite as stupid as you look?'

Alistair decided not to take offence this time, mostly because he could tell the elf was teasing him, 'Ah yes, that must be it.' Detaching his water flagon from his belt he offered it first to the elf. 'Here, it's important to keep your fluids up.'

Mahahlia eyed him curiously flinging aside the disarmed trap, which clattered across the floor. She took the flagon carefully and somewhat gravely, almost as if in accepting his courtesy she was doing something much more than merely slacking her thirst. She nodded to him solemnly. 'Ma serannas, shemlen.'

She swallowed healthily from the waterskin and Alistair watched her throat move. He couldn't help but notice that she looked much better since waking from the Joining. She was nowhere near as pale or pinch lipped. Was it possible that some of her more – evil – behaviour had been because of the Taint corruption? Maybe Mahahlia was even capable of being less, well, _scary_ when she wasn't half-dying from Darkspawn sickness?

'Ma serannas,' Alistair repeated the unfamiliar words. 'I'm going to guess that means "thank you"?' He grinned when the Dalish elf arched a brow at him and nodded cautiously. Deciding that exchanging courtesies was way better than breaking noses, Alistair tried to be a bit more bold.

'Do the Dalish really have a whole other language?' he asked, genuinely curious. There had always been elves around in Redcliffe, but most of them had been from Alienages in other bannorns and they'd mostly seemed just like anyone else, except kind of short with pointy ears. Mahahlia was not like anyone he had ever met before, either elf or human.

The elf in question passed the flagon back to him, wiping the back of her hand over her mouth. 'Once the Elvhehen did,' she admitted, 'but much has been lost even to we Dalish. It is unlikely we'll ever relearn it all. That is why we try to keep alive what words remain to us.'

Alistair wracked his brain for a way to keep this surprisingly civil conversation alive without offending her and saying something stupid. This being no easy feat, Alistair was blessed with a very clumsy tongue and if there was a stupid thing to say, it was a safe bet that he would say it – and at the worst possible time too.

'Why can't you relearn it all?' He asked cautiously. Surely that was safe question, right?

Mahahlia rolled one shoulder in a thoughtlessly elegant shrug. 'No writing,' she said simply, 'the Elvhenen of the lost lands were said to be immortal, shemlen. What need did they have to write down and record all that they knew for the future when they did not fear death?'

'Er…..but they weren't immortal, were they, not really I mean?' Alistair scrunched his brow, distantly it occurred to him that this probably wasn't the smartest thing to say, but it was too late now as a frown had already puckered Mahahlia's painted brow. 'I mean they all _did_ die.' He fumbled seeing the metaphorical cliff he was already plunging down even as the words kept coming.

'Elves can die, can't they?'

Mahahlia regarded him with suddenly very cool blue eyes. He squirmed under that unblinking gaze. Oh well done Alistair; nice one. Very smooth. He braced himself for another punch to the nose.

'Yes,' The Dalish elf said somewhat coldly, after a discernable pause. 'We die; we are as short lived as shemlen now.'

'Ah,' Alistair knew his ears were pinking. He could feel it. 'Why do I feel like apologising for that?'

'Perhaps because it is the shemlens fault?' Mahahlia smirked at him. 'You raped our women and pillaged our lands for centuries, driving my people into city pens to live and die like vermin. Your shem blood poisoned my people and made us almost as you are. The Elvhenen die and it is your fault shemlen.'

Alistair gaped at her, 'I've never raped and pillaged anyone! I'll have you know I was given a proper Chantry upbringing – in an abbey –and everything. Rape and pillage was a definite no-no.'

Once more Alistair braced himself for instant disembowelling courtesy of those wicked twin blades Mahahlia used so well. He was therefore surprised when no blood letting took place.

Instead Mahahlia grinned at him; sudden and incongruous. 'You are young yet, shemlen.' She shrugged as he blinked stupidly at her. 'Maybe you have simply lacked the opportunity?'

Without another word she popped her braid into her mouth, turned on her heel, snapped her fingers for their escort to fall into line and started up the stairs to the top floor of the tower. Alistair watched her, still a bit stunned by the whole conversation. After a moment he realised that they really ought to be getting on with Darkspawn killing and beacon lighting (there was a battle going on after all). Chagrin he bounded forward, long sword unsheathed, to take up his position. Then something occurred to him, her last words sinking in.

'Wait, was that an insult? Did you just insult me or…..?'

Mahahlia turned to grin at him again over her shoulder and it occurred to Alistair that she had the cutest dimple to the left side of her mouth when she smiled like that. He blinked to clear his head of weird thoughts like that, but Mahahlia's next words still stunned him speechless.

'I'm sorry about your nose, shemlen.'


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Nine: No More Grey Wardens**

Mahahlia had never seen anything like the ogre before in her life and she hoped in vain that she would never see another of its ilk again. The creature was huge and all the more hideous for the fact that it vaguely resembled a man in proportion and form. Grey skin and a distended jaw filled Mahahlia's senses as she rocked back on her heels and tried to brace herself against the bone shaking tremors caused by the creature's foul roar.

Alistair surprised her by releasing a roar of his own and charging the creature without a moments pause. He moved with shocking speed for a man in so much metal plate, his shield borne before him. Mahahlia hesitated instantly shuffling to the far wall of the third floor of the tower and circling the fight. Sweat and drying blood coated her palms and weakened her grip on her dar'misu. The ogre was magnificent and obscene and Mahahlia tasted the crisp, metallic coldness of true fear at the back of her throat.

The ogre bellowed once again, reached down with one sapling thick arm and plucked the anonymous tower guard up in its meaty fist. Alistair shouted wordlessly and lunged forward, thrusting his sword into the ogre's muscled thigh. The creature screamed, a spell bolt of eldritch light tore through the air towards it sent by the circle mage, and then…..then the monster squeezed closed his fist.

Mahahlia flinched as the wet crack of hundreds of shem bones shattering at once struck her ears like a physical blow. The shemlen guard's blood seeped in a crimson rush over the ogre's thick fist. Mahahlia saw his dead eyes bulge.

Alistair lunged forward again, slamming his shield into the creature's leg, bashing, pummelling, chipping away at bleeding flesh. His sword arced in the air cleaving skin and muscle and showering black blood across his face, his hair, and his armour. The ogre howled buffeted by spells and Alistair's constant onslaught. Nevertheless the ogre tossed aside the broken shemlen guard easily, carelessly, so that that shattered leaking body hit the wall behind the ogre's back with a wet slap, staining the stone work red as it fell to the floor.

'Die already!'

Alistair struck with his sword, the blade sinking into ruined thigh muscle and gore inches deep – and there it lodged. He tried to pull the weapon free and in that moment made himself a target. The ogre swept down a hand to grab at him.

Mahahlia screamed wordless and savage; she was in motion before she knew it, flying forward, leaping for all she was worth, both blades extended before her. She slammed her dar'misu into the ogre's lower back as deep and as far as she could. The monster howled, recoiling in response to the unexpected backstab, and Alistair was finally able to tear his sword free of the creature's leg and duck for cover.

Bellowing loud enough to bring down the tower roof the creature twisted wildly, horrid hands trying to tear Mahahlia from its back, where she dangled off her feet clinging on to her blades for dear life.

'Let go - Mahahlia get clear!'

Deaf to everything except the roaring of her own blood in her ears Mahahlia did not hear Alistair's shouts. Instead all she knew was the wrenching sensation in her arms and shoulders as the ogre thrashed and twisted; all she was aware of was the foul reek of its scabrous flesh and the tang of blood on her tongue. Scrabbling for purchase she started climbing the creature's back, dragging her blades in and out of the monster's skin as she climbed. The screaming she heard could have been from the ogre or issued from her own throat. Again and again she stabbed her blades in; distantly she felt the crack as her right wrist snapped – but even then she did not stop. Blood covered her eyes, blocked her nose, flew from the ends of her hair. She felt herself fall, felt the ogre fall, and never once stopped her onslaught.

When it was over and the ogre's corpse had twitched its last, Alistair dragged her from the red ruin of its back. Mahahlia did not fight him as she stood trembling in the aftermath, clutching her broken wrist to her chest. She made no mention of the thick wash of blood painting her skin or the streaks of tears cutting through that mask of crimson – and neither did Alistair. Sometimes small favours can be found in the strangest of places.

'Let's get that beacon lit.' Alistair said walking over to the beacon and setting it alight. The flames danced eagerly skyward. Mahahlia gulped in air, sinking silently to the bloody floor. She tried not to look at the spot where the mangled tower guard oozed all over the floor.

At least it was over now, she thought at the exact moment her mind lit up on fire and the top floor of the tower was suddenly filled with Darkspawn. She was too surprised to react as the first of many arrows pierced her body.

******

Mahahlia was dreaming again – and this time she knew it. She walked in the same huge underground cavern she had found the Tamlen-thing in. The rivers of flame still rolled on far below her and dismembered bodies still littered the path. This time however everything was visible through a haze of distortion; edges and contours obscured by a wavering miasma. She heard weirdly modulated voices whispering from dark corners and disembodied shouts which bounced off the heavy stone walls.

Mahahlia was not sure where she was going but despite this her feet kept moving forward.

_They are all dead; all the king's men and the king with them. Betrayed, deceived, abandoned; they died…..just as all men do. _

Mahahlia did not know where the voice came from, it seemed almost as if she thought it rather than heard it; a woman's voice, sweet and strong; the voice of a queen……or a goddess.

'Who are you?' She walked on a quilt of picked clean bones. There were older bones turned into a mountain of dust under the fresher litter of ivory. The slippery, powdery pile made walking treacherous. The bones cracked under foot, the sound as sharp as crossed blades. Above her head darkness closed in.

_The Grey Wardens fell too; the Order is no more. They died at the hands of the horde; all dead now; all gone. _

'Am I dead?' She wasn't afraid and that seemed wrong. Mahahlia vaguely remembered a place beyond this charnel pit; she remembered a tower and a beacon – she remembered a sudden ambush and searing points of pain riddling her body as she hit the cold tower floor.

_No. _The voice almost purred. _Your fleshly form yet breathes little mortal; you live. _

'My fleshly form; am I not in my body now?' Mahahlia looked down at her own hands, stained almost black with dried blood and gore. She looked down at her Dalish boots equally caked in filth and up the length of her body. It looked as though she had bathed fully clothed under a waterfall of blood. 'Where am I?'

_This is the eye of the storm; the place that is and is not. This is where we shall meet and where we shall never meet. This is the head of the horde. _

A massive dark shadow stretched across the land from above, casting Mahahlia in cruel darkness. The shadow's form was impossible to make sense of as it bent across the jagged face of the cliffs and seeped over the path of bones. The scent of old meat and mouldy bones filled her senses and a gusting breath of hot air scalded her back as Mahahlia walked determinedly on without once daring to lift her head. A strange sound like snapping leather and grinding muscle moving together far above her head, made her heart beat harder, faster. Mahahlia felt the heat of her fear rise from her skin in a nearly visible wave. She dared not look above her to the fantastical creature who prowled beside her.

_Let me look at you, little one. Let us both see the other as we truly are. _

The roaming shadows closed in around Mahahlia and for a moment it seemed that she saw claw and membranous skin stretched between thin, yet massive, bones. Mahahlia thought of bats and other winged creatures of the forest but she knew, deep down, that this thing above and beside and all around her, was no bat. Choking back a stifled sob, heart stuttering in her chest, Mahahlia wondered if it was possible to die of fright in a dream. She did not want to look up; she did not want to see what was there. Yet she did not control this dream and she did not control this dream body. Slowly, so terribly, terribly slowly, Mahahlia lifted her head and looked up.

Eyes of sickly yellow flame; a being of massive strength and leashed majesty rose above her. Wings of shadow and fog scraped the cavern ceiling and teeth long as Mahahlia's forearm serrated an almost delicate tapered jaw. Hundreds of raw and bleeding sores oozed corruption as they opened like geysers across the dragon's body. Pain and fury and madness radiated from the fallen goddess.

_Hello little one. _The archdemon smiled at her.

For the second time in recent history Mahahlia fell out of her dreams screaming in terror.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Ten: Imprints and Dependency **

'So can we do this? Can we go to Arl Eamon and the other people in these treaties and form an army?'

The watery sunlight of a new day screamed through the tangled foliage of the Korcari wilds, slipping around the form of Flemeth, mother of Morrigan, in ragged tatters as the old woman kept one eye on Alistair and the other on Mahahlia.

Tired and aching Mahahlia stared blankly back at Alistair unable to understand or interpret the look in his shadowed, sunken eyes. He looked at her the way he had looked at Duncan – as if in her he saw an excuse not to think for himself.

'You are the senior Grey Warden.' She pointed out in quenched voice feeling cold in the weak sunlight and longing for nothing more than more sleep. Except of course that to sleep was to dream and to dream was to be in the presence of the dragon once again.

'But I don't know what to do!' Alistair looked pale and greyish in pallor. Mahahlia was not completely sure how long she had been unconscious, convalescing in the witches hut, but however long it had been the time interim had not been kind to Alistair. He looked thinner, and somehow less - contented – like a man who had suddenly had all his assurances ripped away from him. In many ways he had. He stared into her with hollow eyes. 'I've lost everything; Duncan, the Grey Wardens, everything is gone. Don't leave me too.'

Mahahlia stared at him and something like rage flared in her gut. _I owe you nothing shemlen. You are a stranger to me! My clan forsook me because of your precious Duncan. _She wanted to yell at the top of her lungs. She wanted to break his nose and poke his haunted eyes right out. She wanted to spit at him and curse him. She wanted to turn and walk away, leave him and his Blight behind. She did none of these things. Instead she turned her gaze inward, swallowed her rage and her resentment, and turned back to Flemeth.

'I suppose we should thank you.' She said softly. _Though I am not sure dying wouldn't have been preferable. _

'Yes I suppose you should.' The old woman's gimlet eyes danced with amusement. Mahahlia did not doubt that the woman knew well the thoughts percolating inside her right now. Just as she did not doubt the old woman was silently laughing at both she and Alistair. 'There is but one thing I would ask of you wardens….'

Mahahlia braced herself for the worst. Alistair continued to look haunted and helpless. It was then that Morrigan stepped out of the hut and Flemeth's trap was sprung.

******

They had been walking for hours. By general agreement the trio wanted to get out of the Wilds before making camp on the road to Lothering. Not even Morrigan wanted to spend any more time than absolutely necessary in this Darkspawn infested forest. Still it was hard, slow progress for the two Grey Wardens. Mahahlia ached all over, so much so it felt like the nubs of her bones wore away at the thin sheath of her skin. She gnawed on a hunk of rye bread Morrigan had packed as travelling provisions and tried to keep mobile through the endless deep green shadow of Korcari. No one spoke, Mahahlia kept her silence because of exhaustion, Alistair in grief, and Morrigan – well – the gods only knew what stray sentiment stayed her tongue.

A rustling in the long grass running parallel to the dirt road they had stumbled upon out of the wilds alerted Mahahlia to danger and she stopped in her tracks, holding out a forestalling hand for silence before either of her travelling companions could ask her why she stopped. Utterly still Mahahlia stretched out her senses, listening to the rustling grasses, tasting the dust of the road floating in the still air, hearing the soft subliminal harmony of wide open space teeming with life. That's when her mind erupted into a smattering of red hot flames: darkspawn.

Alistair had already drawn his broadsword and stepped up beside her as Mahahlia wrestled her dar'misu free of the back-sheathe with tired, uncoordinated fingers. Morrigan, taking her cue from them, readied the long, fire hardened branch she used as a focus for her spells.

'I make four……maybe five?' Alistair squinted into the far horizon where the grey sky melted into the dirt road. Mahahlia didn't answer him, instead she cocked her head to the side as a new sound entered her consciousness -barking.

In a blur of brown pelt and powerful muscle a Mabari leapt the ramshackle fence tracing the road on one side and bounded straight for Mahahlia. For a moment she thought it meant to attack and then she recognised the hound.

'Lethallin!' The word popped into her mind and forced its way from between her lips almost without her conscious thought. The dog skidded to a stop, tongue wagging. Mahahlia reached out a hand, questions fizzing within her tired mind, and then the Mabari loosed a series of shrill barks, wheeled around, and charged back down the dirt road ahead.

'Incoming!' Alistair shouted, needlessly, as a Darkspawn scouting group appeared at the end of the road. Morrigan loosed a spiralling comet of eldritch energy towards the group as the Mabari hound lunged straight for the Hurlock leader, massive jaws clamping down upon the creature's foul neck and four paws ploughing into the creature's chest, knocking them both to the ground.

'Charge!' Alistair roared, doing exactly that, straight for the scout group. Mahahlia followed him with Morrigan flinging ice and fire ahead in a ruthless barrage.

The battle did not take long and when it was done, and Mahahlia sank to the dusty ground, shaking with exertion, exhaustion, and post battle adrenaline, the big Mabari bounded up and lapped at her face with a wide tongue as soft as velvet. The hound snuffled her hair and nudged his head against her shoulder. With every touch, every lap of wet tongue, waves of immense happiness pushed aside her own weariness. Her friend was glad to see her; he had been searching all this time. He was hungry. This he communicated to her clearly, without words.

Mahahlia did not really understand how it was that she could tell so much about this hound, or why he had been seeking her out, and truthfully it did not matter. She felt better for the dog's presence almost immediately and hauled herself back to her feet using the dog's muscle packed shoulder as support.

With Lethallin at her side, suddenly she did not feel so tired and alone.

*****

Duncan was gone. Dead - dead and gone and not coming back. Dead as a dormouse; dead as Cailan; dead, dead, dead; Alistair stared up at the cloud scudded sky, watching wisps of smoke laden smog whisper over the thick veil of formless grey. It was going to rain soon.

Duncan was dead and it was Alistair's fault……well not literally. He hadn't killed the man, after all. _If only I'd been there. If only Cailan hadn't insisted we go to the tower of Ishal….if only Duncan had come with us! _The first heavy drop of rain fell from the leaden sky and plopped onto his head. Alistair shivered as the droplet snaked through his hair and ran down the back of his neck.

'Delightful – now we shall all be soaked.'

Gritting his teeth Alistair tried to ignore Morrigan, keeping his eyes dead ahead before him. He watched Mahahlia trot ahead of them, the big brown Mabari clomping along beside her. The hound had been a surprise; a survivor from Ostagar the big dog must have hared all the way through the wilds in pursuit of them. He'd brought a pack of Darkspawn with him too. Alistair shifted in his splintmail armour, rolling his shoulders. The spot where the arrow shaft had pierced his upper chest ached dully. Still it had been good to sink his sword into those Darkspawn; cathartic, he thought that was the word.

Alistair narrowed his eyes thoughtfully as he watched the elf and the Mabari amble along in companionable silence up ahead. Lethallin, that's what Mahahlia had called the hound and it was obvious the Mabari had imprinted upon her. Alistair wasn't sure how or when that could of happened but he didn't feel like asking either. It didn't really matter. Nothing much of anything mattered. Duncan was dead. _If only I had died instead. I'm useless, but Duncan…..Duncan was a hero. _

They were on their way to a spot Morrigan said was often used by travellings as a campsite along the road. Alistair was oh so thrilled to have the apostate mage along with them, and was still surprised at how swiftly Mahahlia had accepted the witch's presence. She couldn't actually _like _the witch, could she? It didn't seem like it. In fact Mahahlia seemed to be ignoring both he and Morrigan equally.

The Dalish elf walked ahead of them now and made no attempt at conversation. Every now and then she touched a hand to the top of the big dog's head and scratched behind his ears. Alistair wondered what it said about him that he was getting jealous of a big, slobbery dog. Not that he wanted the elf to pet him on the head, just, well, would it kill her to speak to him? After everything that had happened was a little conversation too much to ask?

The rain continued to fall and soon they were all drenched just as Morrigan had predicted. Alistair was almost grateful for the rain – because it hid the tears. Everything seemed like a terrible dream – something from the worst corners of the Fade. Or a Taint nightmare. Alistair kept thinking he'd wake up and Duncan would be there, quiet and calm and silently sympathetic. That wasn't going to happen though. Even Alistair was not so great a fool that he could convince himself that Duncan was anything but dead.

Dead, dead, dead.

_Why won't she speak to me?_ Up ahead Mahahlia did not even slow down. He wondered if she really felt nothing for all the dead at Ostagar, but then again, they hadn't been her people, had they?

In the pack he carried on his back the Warden treaties seemed inordinately heavy; far heavier than crumbly parchment should. How were they supposed to unite all the races against a Blight? There were only two of them left! Plus he wasn't at all sure Mahahlia wouldn't just sneak away in the middle of the night back to her Dalish clan and leave him to do it all on his own. He'd seen the look in her eyes when she'd pointed out to Flemeth that the Grey Warden duty had ended when they had all been slaughtered. It was clear as day she didn't consider herself a Grey Warden. Truthfully Alistair probably shouldn't blame her for that; she hadn't wanted to join up in the first place, and she'd been a full Grey Warden about three hours before everyone died at Ostagar. After Alistair's Joining he'd had a pillow fight; Mahahlia received multiple arrow hits to vital organs. The experience didn't really compare.

_Duncan's dead - she's all I have left. Yes, indeed, a psychotic Dalish elf who hates all humans. And she's it; she's all I have left in the world. Maker's breath! We're all doomed. Do–oooom-ed; doomed, doomed, doomed. _

In silence they trudged on and the rain kept falling.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Eleven: Madness and Levity **

Lothering was not a cheerful place; Alistair had been feeling pretty miserable before they entered the village, but now he was down right depressed. It wasn't just that the village was full of terrified refugees fleeing the encroaching horde, or that in days the entire settlement would likely be wiped off the map. Those things were terrible on their own, but for Alistair it was made all the worse by the company he kept. The apostate didn't seem to possess any sort of compassion in her skinny frame and Mahahlia – well – it was hard for Alistair to know exactly what went on in her head.

First there had been the bandits on the bridge entering the town; after beating the group into submission Mahahlia had proceeded to demand all their coin and then killed them all. Alistair was only a little disturbed by this, those highwaymen had been robbing the poor and the desperate, but still, Mahahlia didn't seem to be in any hurry to return the coin to its rightful owners either.

'If you would go hungry and have us fight without provision, shemlen, then I will not stop you.' She had shrugged holding the sack of silver out to him. All the same there was a definite challenge in her eyes. 'Had you wanted to spare them all you needed to do was say so.'

Alistair had had little answer to that except to cross his arms and mutter, 'Oh no, not that again.'

Why was it that whenever he objected to her bloodthirstiness Mahahlia turned around and made it his fault for not stopping her? Couldn't she see that slaughtering everyone who disagreed with her wasn't the best way to make friends and influence people?

Of course this exchanged had made Morrigan curious and forced her to speak to him, which was already a fate worse than death as far as Alistair was concerned. 'Tis most peculiar,' the evil nasty, weird eyed apostate all but purred as Mahahlia snarled at a poor farmer because he'd said something unkind about elves up ahead. 'Of the two of you left Alistair, are you not the senior Grey Warden?'

Doing his best not to look at Morrigan Alistair ground his teeth and focused his gaze on some happy inner vista (perhaps one involving cheese). 'Ha, I know where this is going – and before you say it: yes I do prefer to follow, happy now?' He snapped.

Morrigan smiled, 'Ah that would explain it.' The witch started forward then without another word, headed to Mahahlia who had stopped to consider where to go next.

'Explain what?' Alistair knew it was a mistake before he even opened his mouth but there was nothing he could do to recall the question now. Morrigan smirked at him over her feathered shoulder.

'Why I would think that was obvious,' She simpered coolly. 'Surely you realise that your fellow Warden holds you in complete contempt?'

'What?' Alistair startled and Morrigan rolled her eyes before sauntering off, stopping only to curl her lip as the mabari urinated up a tree. The dog barked at her happily and continued with his business. Alistair stood stock still, eyes wide. Was Morrigan right? Did Mahahlia really dislike him that much? Why? What had he ever done to her? Other than suggest that killing people willy-nilly wasn't the whizz-o idea she thought it was.

Still that disturbing conversation had only been the start of all the "fun" to be had in pretty as a picture Lothering. Next they had come across a merchant arguing with a Chantry sister. The merchant had been selling his wares at extortionate prices and making a killing out of the generalised suffering. As he listened to the Sister talking, and heard the hard avarice in the merchant's voice Alistair would have been perfectly happy if Mahahlia had decided to murder the man and dance under a fountain of his blood. Instead the elf had listened for a few moments and then turned and walked away.

'It is not my duty to solve the squabbles of shemlen. If you would rob from each other that is no concern of mine.' She had flicked her blue eyes to his. '_You_ may do as you choose though shemlen.' She had added just to rub salt in the wound. 'I will not….'

'Stop me.' Alistair had interrupted, 'Yes I think I've heard that one before.'

'Yet still you do nothing.' Sucking on her braid Mahahlia dismissed him with a shrug of her bony shoulder. Alistair was left just standing there, again, stung and confused. He could feel Morrigan's eyes on him, watching, assessing, and enjoying his misery.

'One wonders why she does not simply kill you and put us all out of your misery.' The witch mused aloud brushing stray wisps of dark hair from her brow. 'She has a slobbering, stinking, brutish creature of her own now,' the witch pointed languidly at the Mabari sniffing around a collection of packing crates and then flicked her mocking eyes back to Alistair. 'She does not need another useless puppy trailing at her heels.'

'Yes thank you,' Alistair grimaced. 'Just so you know I'm going to be ignoring you from now on.' Scowling at the smirking witch he hurried to catch up with the other evil woman in his company. Mahahlia had stopped at the hump back bridge crossing the river in the centre of the village. To his surprise Alistair realised that she had stopped to crouch down in front of a small child.

'I can't find my mummy.' The boy said, wiping his eyes of tears. 'Have you seen my mummy?'

'I don't know. What does she look like?'

Alistair was deeply startled to hear softness in Mahahlia's voice and her face towards the child. As she continued to talk to the boy, carefully avoiding mentioning the obvious, that the boy's mother and sister were likely dead, Alistair was struck by how…….sweet……she was being. In the end she handed over four silvers to the little boy and watched from the bridge as the child took sanctuary in the Chantry.

As they watched the child disappear through the big doors of the Chantry Mahahlia sighed and shook her head sadly. Alistair cleared his throat awkwardly. 'That was…kind of you. What you said, I mean.'

Mahahlia glanced up at him, dry amusement in her eyes. 'Did you think I would tell the boy his mother was dead? Or perhaps that I would slit his throat?'

Alistair felt his cheeks flame hot as burning coals. 'I…er…no, well, um……'

The elf watched him stammer and go red without discernable expression. 'The Dalish know that children are precious,' she said simply, 'For a child to be hurt or left unprotected means that we elders have failed in our duties.'

'Um, but that little boy was human,' Alistair knew his foot was already crammed so far down his own throat he could kick himself in the kidneys, but still the words came. 'Don't you hate humans?'

Mahahlia gave him a long level look, while behind her shoulder Morrigan rolled her eyes in complete contempt and the big Mabari sat at his master's feet and looked up at Alistair with a quizzical expression and an embarrassed whine.

'That is true,' something truly evil sparked in Mahahlia's blue eyes. 'Thank you for reminding me, shemlen. When next we come across one of your kind's young I shall be sure to kill it.' She flashed him that dimpled, far too innocent for such a wicked, wicked person, grin before turning on her heel and all but skipping over the bridge.

'What?' Alistair's voice cracked on his horrified croak. 'That was a joke right? You were joking, weren't you?'

Mahahlia turned around on the bridge, her laughter drifting across the sombre stillness of the village. 'You shall just have to wait and see, won't you shemlen?'

*****

The inside of Dane's Refuge, Lothering's only tavern, was hot, crowded, and reeked of spilled ale and despair. All the same Mahahlia could feel a grin playing over the edges of her lips. This was primarily due to the very strange woman standing before her.

'Are we leaving then?' The strangely spoken shemlen woman in her Chantry robes seemed oddly cheerful.

'We?' Mahahlia could hear the sputtered confusion in Alistair's tone. Sucking on her braid she watched the two shem's talk with hawk like intent.

'Indeed. You are Grey Wardens, yes? Well then I will be going with you when you leave. It seems you will need my help.' The woman gestured to the broken glass and blood stains on the tavern floor.

Upon entering the tavern Mahahlia, Alistair, and Morrigan had been accosted by Teryn Loghain's agents (Lethallin they had been forced to leave outside). Strangely, although perfectly capable of dealing with this gaggle of inebriated soldiers on their own, when the party had drawn blades to fight this odd shemlen woman had intervened. The fight had gone very well after that and the bodies had been swiftly dragged away by patrons of the tavern eager to raid the corpses for any loot.

'You're…….coming with us? What….no. No that's, well just no.' Alistair shifted nervously in his armour. Mahahlia beamed at him unhelpfully when he turned wide eyes to her for guidance, or more likely, in the hopes that she would make the decisions and get rid of this odd woman. This time, however, Mahahlia would make sure it was Alistair who took the lead. He may be happy to follow, as she had overheard him tell Morrigan, but Mahahlia had no wish to lead him - or anyone.

'Why do you even want to come with us?' He demanded without much conviction. 'Aren't you part of the Chantry; don't you have a congregation to…..congregate?' Alistair's desperation would be almost endearing if it was not so irritating. Mahahlia folded her arms across her chest and leaned casually against the wall of the tavern, deeply, deeply amused.

'I am only a lay sister,' the woman said. 'And anyway, the Maker told me to help defeat the Blight. That is what Grey Warden's do, yes? So I will travel with you to perform His will.' The woman smiled charmingly and deftly wiped a smear of blood from her cheek.

'The _Maker _told you to do _what_?' Before the woman could reiterate her previous statement Alistair waved his arms in the air as if to ward the words away. As he did so he knocked an empty tankard to the floor where it landed with a clatter and rolled under a table. 'No, no, no. This is crazy……you're crazy!' The shemlen once again flicked his eyes to Mahahlia. 'Can we leave now, please?'

The strange woman frowned. 'You do not have to believe me,' she said pouting prettily, 'but it is true…...I had a dream……'

'I'll just bet you did,' Alistair reached out to clasp Mahahlia's elbow and tried to pull her towards the door. 'Let's just back away slowly and hope she doesn't follow.'

'What is your name?' Pulling her arm free of Alistair's grip with a quick glare his way, Mahahlia turned her attention to the red headed shemlen woman. The woman wasted another deliberately happy smile on her. 'Oh forgive me! How rude of me not to introduce myself. I am Leliana; I was a lay sister of the Chantry here in Lothering.'

'What are you doing?' Alistair whispered furiously. 'Don't talk to the crazy lady.'

'As much as it pains me to admit it,' Morrigan chimed in. 'I agree with Alistair. We waste time here.'

Mahahlia batted both of them away as she would one of the biting bugs that swarmed the Brecilian forest in the early spring. She watched the shemlen woman with a smile. Mahahlia cared nothing for the shemlen god or his desires, but if this woman could so rattle Alistair perhaps she was worth keeping around for a time? She could obviously hold her own in a fight, and if there was a female shemlen around (other than Morrigan who distained Alistair more than Mahahlia did) then perhaps Alistair would attach himself to this lay sister and not her? That would be a very good thing.

'I care not if you follow us, Maker slave,' Mahahlia smiled brightly as the woman blinked in surprise. 'But know this. Slow us down or prove a liability and I will kill you.'

Behind her back she heard Alistair groan, 'Oh Maker have mercy.' She imagined him clutching his head mournfully and the image appealed. 'What did I ever do to deserve this? How many more evil, crazy women am I going to be stuck with?'

Mahahlia's smile grew even larger. She turned around impishly, clasped Alistair by the shoulders of his armour, and rose on tip-toe before giving him a peck on the nose. 'Don't worry shemlen one of us will kill you soon enough, and then it will all be over.'

Dropping back down onto the floor she strolled out of the tavern with three pairs of shemlen eyes blinking after her in total shock. It would prove to be an auspicious beginning.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Twelve: Attempted Murder and Odd Comforts: Pt One**

It was an accident. Alistair was prepared to accept this, but still, as he poked gingerly at the goose-egg bump on his head and winced he couldn't help but wonder a little bit about just how much of an accident it had been. Hunched by the fire feeling miserable made everything sort of suspect, but then again he _had_ nearly died. The big mabari watched him keenly from a supine position a little ways towards the road, chewing on a bone almost menacingly.

'Don't get any ideas,' he grumbled and the dog panted contentedly lolling pink tongue flapping. Alistair went back to poking at the bruised cut on his brow, still sulking.

'You shouldn't poke it.' Leliana (or the crazy lady as Alistair still thought of her, even though he had to admit she was awfully sweet for a loony) looked over at him across the banked fire. She was restringing her small lyre with deft fingers, occasionally plucking out a few melodious notes.

'I'm not poking,' Alistair grumbled well aware that he sounded like a sulky child. 'I'm just,' he paused and considered the least whiny answer he could come up with. 'It itches.' He admitted finally fairly sure admitting that did absolutely nothing for his masculinity or mystique of bravery.

'I made the stitches as clean as I could.' Leliana was a menace, especially when she pouted like that. Alistair immediately felt as though he was less than two inches tall.

'Oh no, no, it's great, really.' He hurried to reassure the newest member of their motley crew. 'These are the neatest stitches I've ever had, really. My scar is going to be the envy of everyone.' He smiled somewhat inanely but it seemed to have the desired effect. Leliana stopped pouting.

'Good. I am glad I could be of service.' She smiled and went back to tuning her lyre. Silence reigned for all of thirty seconds. 'It was an accident you know.' The Orlesian lay-sister, would-be visionary and possible crazy person flicked her eyes up at him coyly with devastating effect. Alistair looked away, cheeks heating.

'I know.' He stared intently at a dandelion half crushed by his bed roll. He was just so bad at lying, mostly because lying successfully took forethought and Alistair wasn't all that good at thinking before he spoke at the best of times.

'Mahahlia was very upset when she thought you had drowned.' Leliana persisted. 'She came running back to camp, all wet and muddy, water dripping from her leathers, hair wild, chest heaving, her slick skin glistening in the sunlight, gasping for air……' the bard-sister trailed off. She had developed an odd far-away glint to her eyes which made Alistair feel inexplicably uncomfortable.

'Yes alright. I get the picture.' He interrupted hastily before said picture could get any more graphic. Desperate for a distraction he stared across the expanse of the campsite to Morrigan's makeshift den. The Apostate refused to stay within ten feet of any of them except when in combat and slept away from the main campfire, which suited Alistair just fine. Right now however the witch had a visitor. Mahahlia was perched on a tree stump, cross legged and gnawing on her braid while she and Morrigan appeared be talking about something. Alistair was almost curious enough to brave approaching, but after the events of earlier that very day he thought it might be safer not to know.

He just couldn't believe his fellow Grey Warden had really tried to kill him.

*****

It all started after a breakfast of stale oat biscuits and cured meat supplemented with some small, wrinkled apples. Alistair, feeling outnumbered and unnerved amid the women, had wandered off a little ways to the river winding through the woodland edging their campsite. He was still in his splintmail (he just didn't feel safe going un-armoured in the present company) and so it took a while to get comfortably settled on the edge of the slight abutment looking down over the river.

They had been travelling for about seven days headed north-east towards the great expanse of the Brecilian forest in search of one of the wandering Dalish clans. Alistair frowned a little looking at his own wobbly reflection in the surface of the fast moving river. He should have realised that Mahahlia would head straight for the Dalish first, but truthfully, he'd been really hoping she'd heed his words and head for Redcliffe. Then again did he really want that? Going to Redcliffe would mean he'd have to explain about the whole Maric's bastard thing, and that could be very, very awkward. In fact just thinking about what Morrigan would have to say about it made him physically queasy, and he really, really didn't want to think of how Mahahlia would react. He had the feeling it might go something like: _You're not just an evil, raping pillaging elf killing shemlen, but an evil raping and pillaging shemlen kings' son! Die, die, die!_ Which in turn would be followed by lots of stabbing and bleeding (at least on Alistair's part).

Maybe it was better to be going after the Dalish. Yet Alistair couldn't help but wonder if, when they did find one of the clans, Mahahlia might decide to disregard the whole oath sworn duty to the Grey Wardens (which she hadn't had much choice about, truth be told) and decide to rejoin her people. What would he do if she tried to do that? Well, die a horrible painful death probably; especially if he tried to stop her from going back to her people.

'Why me?' Alistair plaintively asked his own crestfallen reflection as he fished out his old, worn runic worry stone and started tossing it nervously from one hand to the other.

The loss of Duncan still played on his mind like a canker sore and he had found the best thing he could do was push it as far back into his mind as he could. He felt like a failure. He _was_ a failure. He failed as the senior warden, letting the new recruit make all the decisions (even though he knew, crazy and evil as she was, Mahahlia was better at leading than he ever would be). Worst of all though, and the thing that hurt most, was the fact that every day he knew he was failing Duncan. He just, he just didn't know what to do. Every time he thought that maybe they should do something one way, or that Mahahlia was making a mistake, and he'd open his mouth to speak, he'd end up remembering that he was just a bastard orphan who grew up above stable, and then a cloistered abbey being caned by a withered old hag of a Revered Mother. He was so completely unfit to lead that the realisation stopped his tongue dead every time.

'She's right, I am spineless.'

Scowling down into his palms he tossed the runic stone from hand to hand. His thoughts scattered hither and thither, all of them a million miles away from this river bank on the southern most edges of the Brecilian forests. That was one of the reasons he did not see the shadow detach herself from the gentle shade of a weeping willow and step up silently behind Alistair's precariously balanced form.

'What is that stone shemlen?' Mahahlia asked peering over his crouched form at the curio he played with.

Alistair, caught completely by surprise, yelped in undignified fashion, the white stone leaping from his hands to spin in the air briefly before plopping into the river. Alistair cursed, reflexively reaching for the stone as the ripples upon the waters surface faded under the flow of the current. Then heavy and encumbered in his armour, Alistair lost his balance. He pitched head first into the river and sank like the proverbial very large and metal clad stone. It really was unfortunate, all the way around, that he happened to be a very bad swimmer.

*****

It all happened so fast. One moment Mahahlia had been savouring the chance to sneak up on the dim witted shemlen and the next she was left gaping on the river bank as the fool sank under the waters and was immediately picked up and swept along by the current.

'Shemlen?' Calling after him was a foolish thing to do and immediately Mahahlia started to run along the bank. The river she knew would drop off into a small waterfall about a half mile ahead. The pool at the bottom was an excellent swimming hole, as she had discovered when scouting earlier, but at the point where the river flowed down into it there were a number of sharp and jagged rocks. Her fellow grey warden would be dashed to pieces as soon as he landed. Assuming he had not already drowned. Why was he not swimming for the shore? Why was he just bobbing and cart-wheeling in the water like that?

'Shemlen?' Picking up the pace Mahahlia never once took her eyes from Alistair's limp form, tossed about in the strong current of the river, limbs akimbo. The shem was not swimming; he was not swimming! Why was the stupid human not swimming? Did he not know he was drowning in there! Something almost like panic bubbled up in Mahahlia's breast as she nimbly hopped from one rock to another scaling down the overhang to reach the waters edge proper.

Jumping out onto the first of a number of large stones piercing the smooth flow of the river Mahahlia stuck her fingers in her mouth and released a sharp and piercing whistle. 'Lethallin – come!' She called for good measure, hoping that her dog was not too far as to be out of ear shot. Then, because she was not sure what else to do, Mahahlia threw herself into the frigid cold waters of the river and let the current take her, hoping that it would bring her all the more swiftly to Alistair's side.

Gasping at the cold and struggling to keep her head above the surface she called out, helplessly to the shemlen. 'Alistair!'

Many times she had considered murdering the whiny shemlen, but not like this! Fighting the fierce current all the way and ducking her head Mahahlia dove under the surface and began to swim in earnest. Even under the surface she could hear the thunderous roar of the waterfall ahead.

******

The inside of Alistair's mouth tasted like dead fish; it was ten colours of nasty.

'Damn you shemlen!' There was a sharp pressure scything through his consciousness and an uncomfortable weight on his chest as well. Alistair began to suspect that something was not right around here.

'You. Are. Not. Allowed. To. Die.'

Someone was shouting at him and woozily Alistair wondered what he'd done now. Perhaps it was one of the Revered Mother's harpy minions come to drag him from his nice warm bed for more prayers and chants and endless drills. Then again, he didn't feel like he was in his nice warm bed.

'Stupid shemlen! Do not think I will allow you to die and leave me to end the Blight alone!'

Blight? Pain and wet and discomfort poured into the warm fuzzy place Alistair had been previously enjoying. He remembered a river and a big rock smacking into his head (or perhaps that should be the other way around?). Oh maker, what had happened?

'Wake up you stupid, lazy, fool oaf of a shem!' Whack, whack, whack someone was slapping his face on both cheeks hard enough to sting. Coughing and spluttering Alistair thrashed about limply.

'I'm awake……I'm awake!' He choked out weakly trying to pry his eyes open. 'Stop hitting me.'

Finally he managed to open his eyes and the sight that accosted his senses was one he would not soon forget. Mahahlia, straddling his lower body, beating on his chest with her small but lethal fists; she was soaking wet and covered in river silt and algae. Her hair was plastered to her scalp making her blue eyes look ever larger in her face. The thorny Dalish tattoos blazed like frozen lightning across her very pale brow.

It was one of the most unutterably terrifying sights Alistair had ever beheld. For a moment as Mahahlia realised he was finally awake the two Grey Wardens just stared at each other and Alistair could have sworn she looked relieved to see him alive and awake. Then something like a summer storm darkened her blue eyes and she balled and cocked one fist. The fist came down like the inevitability of the Maker's judgement and punched him squarely in the nose.

'I hate you, you stupid shemlen.'


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Thirteen:** **Attempted Murder and Odd Comforts: Pt Two**

'Tis a great pity your attempt to drown Alistair failed.' Morrigan poked at her small fire with a long stick and Mahahlia shifted uneasily on her tree stump and stifled a sigh of irritation. She really didn't want to talk about what had happened earlier today. Morrigan however, sharp eyed as a hawk, was keen to exploit the situation for all the amusement it could yield. 'Perhaps,' she mused with infuriating slowness, 'it was not the water that failed, but rather your nerve?'

'It was an accident,' Mahahlia tugged at the chewed braid dangling past her chin. 'He fell in.'

'So you do not want him dead then?' Morrigan's eyes glittered gold as the flames dancing in their reflective depths. Mahahlia met that haunting regard head on. 'It was not your intention to sneak upon the armoured fool at the waterside and cause him to lose his footing?' Morrigan clucked her tongue. 'Such a shame; I had thought the plan quite cunning of you.'

'If I kill the shemlen it will be with my blades.' Mahahlia pointed out archly, raising her chin unconsciously and squaring her shoulders. 'I will not hide behind artifice and subterfuge.'

Morrigan favoured her with a drolly amused look, 'So you think you could best him in fair combat, do you? How interesting.'

Mahahlia allowed just the tiniest of dark smiles to quirk her lips in answer to the equally wicked slant to Morrigan's own. 'I did not say it would be a _fair_ fight.'

Morrigan's eyes glimmered, 'Good. I have found this foolish notion of honour in conflict to be a very male preoccupation of the mind. A woman's mind is a far sharper instrument, not to be blunted by such silly ideas.'

Mahahlia kicked her legs and turned her gaze outward across the dusk to where Alistair sat sulking by the fire across from Leliana. 'Honour has its place.' She said softly. Morrigan did not comment and for a short time the two women sat in surprisingly companionable silence. Of the three shemlen she travelled with Morrigan was by far the easiest for her to deal with. In fact Morrigan was quite easy to get along with; all one needed was a thick skin.

'You were raised in the Wilds?' Mahahlia was surprised to hear herself speak. Morrigan once again speared her with a cool, quizzical regard. 'That is where you have always lived?'

'With my mother, yes,' the woman conceded warily after a moment.

Mahahlia nodded, 'I spent most of my time in the Brecilian. I like the woods best.'

'The Wilds were all I knew,' Morrigan hitched one shoulder, 'For many years at least. I had no need of human companionship; when if I wished to speak I could speak with the trees and if I wanted company I could run with the wolves.'

Mahahlia's attention fastened on the witch. 'Yes.' She said almost eagerly. 'I wish I could be as you are and become a bird, or a wolf at will.'

The apostate mage almost, almost allowed a smile to grow upon her haughty features. However when she spoke her tone was cool and not a little smug. 'Alas you cannot,' she said, 'for you are not a mage.'

'The mages of my clan could not shapeshift either.' Mahahlia pointed out. She had been fascinated by this power ever since Morrigan had first demonstrated it on the road. Alistair had been horrified, Leliana shocked, when the witch had become a spider larger than Lethallin and proceeded to paralyse and devour a Blight wolf, but Mahahlia had been enthralled. Her very obvious interest and enthusiasm had helped to endear Mahahlia somewhat to the prickly mage; perhaps because of the obvious discomfort shown by the other two shemlen.

'It is a rare and difficult art to master.' Morrigan agreed warming to her narrative and the opportunity to boast. 'I learned the talent from Flemeth, but where she gained her skills……well, that is another story.' The witch turned back to the fire, enigmatic to the last.

Mahahlia slipped from her perch, 'It is late now.' Careful not to give in too easily to the obvious hook and bait, for that was not the way to win Morrigan over, Mahahlia tucked her braid behind her ear and made to leave the witch's solitary camp. 'Goodnight Morrigan.'

'And to you Warden,' the witch watched her go, golden eyes shining like a fox's in the night. Then Morrigan turned away and reminded herself of her purpose here, and that it would not do to think of the elf as anything other than a tool to meet an ends. Still, the elf had more promise than Alistair and her company was at least mildly diverting – especially when the elf terrorised the hapless templar. Yes Morrigan smiled, as distasteful as this journey's conclusion was likely to be the witch supposed at least the journey itself would be entertaining.

******

The moonlight did not offer much in the way of illumination and the water was perishing cold, yet Mahahlia did not let that stop her. The crash of the river falling into the rock pool became a background chorus to her chattering teeth as she dived below the waters surface once more. It had to be here somewhere and she would find it or drown trying.

Lounging in the long grass by the poolside Lethallin kept a weather eye on his mistress and one ear cocked for approaching danger. Still it would take much to get him into that water again. Once to fish his mistress and the metal clad human out of the river had been quite enough for him. Barking a lazy sigh the mabari hunkered down for a long wait. A guilty conscience was not something the mabari knew much about, but he hoped that his mistress wouldn't indulge in it too often – it all seemed like a lot of trouble over nothing.

Oh well. At least it was more interesting than the kennels he had known as a pup.

******

Two days after the drowning incident Alistair's head had stopped hurting and Leliana had removed the stitches. Still Alistair and Mahahlia had yet to say a word to one another and the itch between the almost-templar's shoulder blades where Morrigan's eyes bored into him with silent laughter was beginning to burn. Grinding his teeth Alistair went about breaking camp with unnecessary roughness. He didn't know what was worse, that Mahahlia had ambushed him, made him almost drown and then punched him in the face when he didn't stay drowned, or the fact that she wouldn't even look at him now.

More than that, however, he'd lost his runic worry stone. It was a stupid thing to be upset about, but that little stone had been a gift from Duncan, ferreted out of the pocket of the first Darkspawn Alistair had killed as a fully blooded and oath bound grey warden. He'd carried it with him ever since. Now that silly little white disk was at the bottom of that river, or swept miles down stream. The fact that the whole thing had most likely been an accident only meant that Alistair felt guilty about feeling upset, which only made him feel worse. And _that_ hardly seemed fair, especially as Alistair was the one that had nearly drowned. He was still brooding over these various injustices when a deliberately obtrusive shadow fell over him from behind. Instantly Alistair froze like a hare caught in a snare.

'Shemlen?'

It didn't seem possible but Mahahlia almost sounded, well, contrite. Slowly and not a little warily Alistair turned around where he crouched beside the collapsed canvas of his tent and peered up at the elf, shading his eyes from the morning sun curving around her slender silhouette. He didn't say anything, as that seemed the wisest course of action. Plus with the sun in his eyes he couldn't see if the elven warden was armed or not.

'Here.' Instinctively Alistair recoiled a little when the elf thrust something towards him clasped in her two hands. Then he frowned and stared.

'What is that?'

Held out to him in Mahahlia's two hands was some sort of statuette, carved from a perfectly black and almost glassy stone, the figurine was about four inches tall and vaguely feminine in form. There were strange runes carved into the base of the statue that instantly reminded Alistair of the runes, long worn away by his nervous thumbs, that had once graced either side of his runic stone. Impulsively he reached out and took the statue from Mahahlia's hands.

'Where did you find this?'

'Amid the bandits' loot on the aquaduct outside Lothering,' Mahahlia shrugged casually and plopped down on the grass beside Alistair, folding her legs underneath her. 'It is odd and curious and so I took it.'

'This is……well it's all demon-y, isn't it?' Considering he was sworn to rid Ferelden of the Darkspawn and other evil things it might be seen as a bit strange that Alistair had a secret (or not so secret) fascination in all things occult and, well, demon-y, but he did and was suddenly quite envious that Mahahlia had found this figurine while rooting through the bandits yield. 'Look – she's got horns and everything.'

Reluctantly Alistair started to hand the statuette back, but Mahahlia shoved it back once more into his hands and jumped to her feet. 'You can have it shemlen. It will fit in your pack better than mine.' She did not look at him but Alistair could still hear her unspoken apology in the slight discomfiture with which the elf held herself. For the first time in a long while Alistair's spirits started to lift a little.

'Really?' He asked. 'I can keep this; you don't mind?' He knew he probably sounded very unmanly but he couldn't help it. He clasped the statue a little more firmly in his hands and grinned. 'You know I could get used to this.'

Mahahlia gave him a long level look. 'Get used to what shemlen; almost drowning? Or maybe being punched by an elf?' She asked, with a completely straight face that nevertheless seemed to hint clearly that she was laughing at him behind her eyes.

Alistair played along, glad to have the tension broken, and affected a scowl. 'The _gift giving_ part, not the drowning me first part.' He stated firmly, quickly shoving the statuette away in his pack for safe keeping. 'Although I'm getting used to the being punched by an elf part too,' He added a trifle sourly, in what he hoped was a tone too low for her to hear. Alas he had forgotten that elven ears weren't just large and pointy for nothing more than show.

'Really?' There was definitely teasing menace in Mahahlia's tone now. 'Then perhaps I should add variety and start kicking you too?'

'Err, no, no,' Alistair didn't know if she was joking or not, it was always hard to tell with her. Just in case he scooted back at bit, out of the range of her feet. 'That's alright.'

'Hmm,' Mahahlia gave him a laughing look and turned away. 'Oh, and this is yours too, shemlen.'

Too quick for Alistair's sun blinded eyes to catch, Mahahlia drew back her arm and something hard and small bounced off the very centre of Alistair's forehead. 'Ow! Hey what was that for?' Yelping and immediately rubbing at the spot where she had hit him it took Alistair a moment to realise just what it was she had thrown at him.

Sitting in the grass in front of him was a small, worn, white stone, no larger than a pebble. Alistair blinked in surprise. 'This is – but how did you…..?' He looked up only to find Mahahlia had already retreated to the other side of the camp. Grinning even more moronically than usual Alistair snatched up the runic worry stone in his fist and quickly tucked it safely away; maybe almost drowning was worth it, after all? Especially if it meant he got to see a little more of the elf's friendlier side.


	15. Interlude: One

**Interlude: A Crow in Denerim**

Ferelden was a marvellous country; marvellously wet and cold and stinking. Much as a leper's corpse left too long to rot in the gutter. (Truly he could not have found a more apt place to die had he fallen into an open sewer.)

The Crow peered out across the dock with his back to the Siren. To think he had been almost salivating with eagerness, like a minor lordling with his first whore, to get off that boat, and now here he was, wanting nothing more than to jump back aboard and make haste back to his Antiva City without delay.

'Tsk, Zevran, what a fool you are.'

Isabela, dear lady that she was, had been very _obliging_ throughout the crossing to this blighted country (many an enjoyable night had been spent sinking his mighty anchor into her delicious keel-hold, have no doubt) but all the same he was not happy. (Not that he had made this journey with his own happiness in mind, that is. It was not generally the case that those seeking oblivion in death should be _happy_ to begin with.)

All the same perhaps if this Ferelden did not stink so of fish and dog and unwashed woollen wear, _maybe_ then he could see the bright side. The Crow sighed once more, a wretchedly theatrical exhalation of hard done by misfortune (which caught the curious eye of a rather strapping long shore man) he shouldered his slim pack of provisions and eased his way between the drifting throngs of men and women packing the docks.

'Excuse me, good sir,' quick stepping towards a burly man in leathers, vaguely resembling some rudimentary form of uniform, the Crow affected his most engaging smile upon his face as he addressed the man. 'I am new to this marvellous city; could you please direct me to the nearest reasonably priced?'

The man blinked and then sneered down from his handful of inches of extra height. The Crow had become used to being looked down on throughout his life, both figuratively and literally, and so merely held his smile and waited.

'You're an elf.' His fine new friend stated after an appreciable pause. The Crow resisted the desire to applaud the man for finally managing to string a sentence together.

'Yes, indeed I am, my observant friend.' The Crow increased the amplitude of his smile. 'An elf in need of accommodation, as it should happen. Do you know where I might find such?'

The man, a human who smelled over much of, well, the Crow did not really want to think too long on what the man smelled off, except that it appeared to be equal parts unwashed hair and skin combined with a scent that was reminiscent of offal and dog faeces, glowered at him with bloodshot eyes. 'Bleedin' knife ear; ain't no inn goin' to take your kind. You belong in the bleedin' Alienage; or the gallows.'

The Crow sighed. The human's words rolled over him like water off the proverbial water fowl's back. Still, _knife-ear _was it? How delightful. And, as it would happen considering his vocation, surprisingly fitting. The Crow smiled just short of open laughter. How charming and colourful these Ferelden's were.

'Of course my intolerant friend,' he said aloud still maintaining an amicable tone. 'Perhaps then you would direct me? To the Alienage I mean, I do not particularly wish to experience the gallows.' He paused and his smile turned wry, 'Not just yet, at any rate.'

Not that he had any intention of actually setting foot in any Alienage either but his prejudiced little friend didn't need to know that. An elf he was. He could not, and would not, deny the fact, but the Crow liked to live to certain standards, and alas base degradation combined with crushing poverty flew right in the face of those fastidious standards. Still as he understood it there was a large Alienage in Denerim city, surely he could find an inn that would disregard his racial failings in favour of his very good coin along the way?

Sadly his new friend was not feeling very cooperative. Clearly these Ferelden did not know how to properly greet foreign visitors. Tsk it was shameful really. 'Get lost boy.' The human harbourmaster, who that was indeed his new friend's occupation, snarled at him. Coolly and with a certain detached part of his mind the Crow observed the painfully obvious shifting in the man's bulk from merely belligerent to openly hostile. The human made to shove him away but he had already slipped aside and ducked around the larger, less nimble man.

'Oi! The harbourmaster made a lumbering attempt to twist around to face him again, arm coming up in a ham-fisted swing. The Crow almost laughed at such amateurism. A flick of the foot, tangled between the foul smelling human's ankles was enough to send the man sprawling face first towards the stone quayside. 'Ooof! You little bugger!'

Ever the consummate performer the Crow dived straight into a new act. 'Ah my friend, are you ill? Let me help you up.'

A deft jerk of his arm and the spring loaded dagger secreted inside his sleeve sprang out as the Crow solicitously leaned down towards the human with all appearance of helpful concern. Any casual observer would merely see a smiling elf reaching down to help a fallen man, and was that not what elves lived for, to serve their human betters? The Crow smirked as he jabbed the tip of the dagger into the human's sternum, just shy of piercing leather and flesh alike.

'My dear new friend, we seem to have a misunderstanding, yes?' He addressed the human in a softer voice, speaking swiftly and precisely. 'This being, I think, that you are labouring under the illusion that an elf would not cheerfully open you up from gut to crown and feed your entrails to the fish.' The Crow pushed the knife in a little deeper and the human's stinking breath left him in a hot rush of surprise. 'This, if you do not mind me saying, would be a very unfortunate misapprehension for you to maintain. Fatal one might say.'

'You….' The human tried to throw him off but the Crow was nothing if not agile and quickly had the man flat on his back against the filthy stone ground again.

'Oho, my good friend, you are not so steady on your feet it seems!' The Crow cheered loudly. 'Perhaps you are, as they say, in your cups, hmm?' And then, in a softer steelier tone, one reserved solely for his prey, 'My blade is poisoned; one scratch and you will die. Though alas not so very quickly. Tell me my new friend; are you familiar with the poison Lanthrax?'

'Knife eared scum.' The human spat at him.

The Crow, in response to such rudeness, deftly twitched his wrist and the dagger tip neatly separated leathers, cutting through them like butter. The human's eyes grew impossibly wide as he felt the tickle of the blade point against his stomach. The Crow smiled with cold eyes. 'Yes, yes. Quite so; I am scum.' He agreed without rancour. 'Now let me ask again: where would I find a good inn?'

The human spluttered, cursed him some more in his guttural, harsh mother tongue and then, just when the Crow was thinking he would have to fillet the harbourmaster after all and go and ask directions from some more generous soul, the man finally gasped out: 'The Gnawed Noble - in the market district. Damn you, you whoreson knife eared bastard. I'll see you dead for this.'

'The Gnawed Noble, you say?' The Crow rolled the name about on his tongue, smiling. 'What a marvellous name; hmm, perhaps this city will not be so bad after all.' Jumping to his feet, the Crow used his momentum to haul the other man up back to his feet. 'Thank you my friend.' Clapping the human on the shoulder he turned jauntily on his heel and eased into the foot traffic thronging the harbour as smoothly as a fish joining a shoal.

'Oi, Guards! Guards! -Wait – stop that elf! He tried to kill me!'

Laughing under his breath the Crow neatly threw his blade aside and continued walking. One, two, three; he couldn't hear it or see it but somewhere back towards the quayside he had no doubt there was a human man with terrible personal hygiene and poor social skills writhing around on the floor coughing up his own melting lungs. Ah, Lanthrax; some of his fellow crows thought he was a sentimentalist to stick with the old poisons, but personally the elven Crow believed that the old ones were the best ones. He was quite disappointed he couldn't stay and watch his handiwork, but alas, he had a client to meet and a dramatic suicide to achieve.

Whistling between his teeth and flashing a smile to all the pretty lovelies and strapping gents he passed, Zevran Arainai, the best Antivan Crow to ever wilfully seek failure and death in foreign lands, set off for the Gnawed Noble and a good night's rest. He should get his beauty sleep, for tomorrow, he would meet with Arl Howe and the hunt would be on. Tomorrow he would take the first step towards a new destiny, and whether that should be death or something else entirely, well! Only time would tell.

Regardless, Zevran would have his fun along the way.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Fourteen: Never Go Home Again**

Mahahlia was home and yet none of this was hers. Walking around the Dalish aravel, listening to the sounds of the people speaking the tongue of the Elvhenen it was as if she walked in a strange and distorted dream world. Where she expected to see Hahren Paivel telling the old tales to the children of the clan, she found a stranger telling tales that she recognised but in a manner she did not. Instead of Fenerel lurking hopefully amid the hunters there stood a milk-sop faced boy called Cammen without the wood sense to make his first kill.

When Mahahlia had insisted on making for the Dalish encampment in the Brecilian forest as their first destination along the road to an army, much to Alistair's not so secret dismay, she had done so in answer to the deep longing inside her. She had craved for her home and family, and the safety and security that would come with being amid her kind again. Yet now, here amid the People, she felt instead as much an outsider as the shemlen she travelled with. This was not her clan, and this was not her home. These were strangers wearing almost familiar faces.

Everywhere she felt hostile eyes boring into her back; whispers in a familiar beloved tongue turned vile with suspicion. To her the Dalish of Zathrian's clan offered the friendship and familiarity any clan would offer a visitor from another clan, yet it was the treatment the shemlen with her received that put Mahahlia's teeth on edge. Silence, rudeness, barely constrained antagonism; all these things met Leliana when she tried to compliment a Dalish girl on her hair, and cold dagger eyes watched Alistair every time he so much as moved too quickly in his squeaking armour. Morrigan had little patience with the scrutiny and hostility of the Dalish and immediately took the form of a large and brooding raven for the duration of the day. Mahahlia in her heart of hearts had never wished more that she could join Morrigan in such a form and hide away from this nightmare made real.

It was not that Mahahlia exactly disapproved of the clan's treatment of her travelling companions; shemlen had no place amid the clans after all, but this clan had signed treaty with the Grey Wardens, and as far as Zathrian and the others knew all three shemlen were Wardens, not just Alistair. It spoke poorly of the clan and the Keeper to treat sworn allies in such a way.

_We are the People; we are the last remnant of the Elvhenen who once cultivated this land, long before the first of the quick children named this place Ferelden. It is…petty…to treat guests in such a way. We should be better than the shemlen not pander to their prejudice. _

These and other troubling thoughts kept Mahahlia ill at ease throughout the day. A day spent repeatedly saying over and over to Alistair and Leliana both: 'This is not the way my clan would do things. I am sure it is due to the werewolf attacks.' And other similarly hollow excuses. That neither Alistair nor Leliana spoke one word of complaint caused strange feelings of guilt and almost shame to percolate within Mahahlia. Her eyes burned with unshed tears.

_Why do I care? I am Dalish, they are shemlen. It is good they know how we despise them. It is good they know how it truly is with the Elvhenen. _

Yet that was not true; Leliana, although silly and daft, was never less than kind and accommodating, and Alistair, well the shemlen could not be less domineering or oppressive if he tried. She would sooner expect Lethallin to lead an Exalted March against her people than this foolish, simple shemlen man. In fact since the accident at the river he did not irritate her half as much as he had done. Likewise even Morrigan was an interesting travelling companion, and although shemlen, Mahahlia felt that the witch at least understood the splendour of the wilderness. None of them deserved to be treated so poorly.

_And so they trap us; it is the way of shemlen to be sweet only to be cruel when they have captured our trust. Those lessons we learned when the Dales fell to the Chantry's Exalted March. We were Andraste's allies and then her disciples turned upon us in fear. No, I am Dalish; I am of the Elvhenen – I will not be moved. I should learn from this Zathrian and his clan. _

Around and around her angry thoughts churned becoming snarled and heavy; paining her with every step she took. Just like the darkspawn taint that had infected her and Tamlen and caused all this woe, Mahahlia's own doubts poisoned her world and twisted her spirit into harsh and angry forms.

That night, the night before she and the rest of the party travelled into the forest to track down werewolves, Mahahlia crept away from the safety of the encampment, Lethallin at her side, and found a dry creek bed wherein she knelt amid the crackling dead grasses and wept. She wept until her head ached and her throat burned and still she did not know what she truly wept for. It felt like a death, but she did not know who or what had died. Her childhood perhaps?

Thus it was that even here in the heart of a Dalish clan Mahahlia felt alone. She came to realise something else too. This pain in her, it was all the Grey Wardens fault. For it was they who had made her a stranger even among her own people. It was the taint in her, the Warden Taint; it had changed her inside and made what had once been unquestioned suddenly questionable. She would never forgive these shemlen wardens for this violation. She would never forgive them for taking her very nature from her. it sickened her to realise that she had almost, _almost_, softened her guard towards these shem, who had so poisoned her mind.

_I will not lose myself to this damnable punishment. I will not allow the Wardens to win._ Over and over she repeated the mantra in her head, as if willing the warden poison from her mind and soul. She had promised herself she would not be taken in by them and she was determined to not let it be so.

That night, darkest of all nights, Mahahlia spat upon Duncan's memory until not even her temper could keep sleep at bay. That night, in her dreams, all she heard was a cacophony of hideous shrieking and Tamlen calling to her over and over again.

*****

'Does anyone else think this is all getting a bit suspicious?' Alistair fought his way through the dead, spindly branches of a Sylvian trap, every inch of exposed flesh scratched and torn; his sword nicked from biting into animate wood. Mahahlia ignored him and his too heavy looks, nimbly ambling along the length of a fallen tree to acquire the ironbark for Master Varathorn.

'I mean think about it. Talking werewolves who won't attack us; talking oaks and lunatics living in tree stumps……this is all looking a bit peculiar to me.'

'What strikes me as peculiar, Alistair,' Morrigan spoke up from her position at the back of the ranks, 'is the notion that any reasonable person would be interested in your opinion.'

'Ha-ha very funny,' Alistair spoke without humour. 'I was being serious.'

The witch arched one perfectly curved midnight brow, 'As was I.'

Mahahlia shook her head depositing the ironbark into the sack master Varathorn had given her for this very purpose. Performing this service for the weaponsmith almost allowed her to pretend that she was home with the Mahariel and simply performing errands for the hahren of the clan.

'Alright I'm really serious now,' Alistair's voice intruded upon her mournful reflection. She looked up to see he had drawn closer, brows tangled together across his forehead in a deep frown. 'Aren't you even the least bit worried that we might be……I don't know……walking into a situation where we don't know the whole story?'

'No.' Mahahlia stated flatly.

'No?' Alistair blinked at her, 'But, I mean, come on! There's something really odd going on here, and if _I _can figure it out then surely you must have as well.'

'Yes quite, because obviously we must all share in your paranoid delusions.' Morrigan sniped from the sidelines but Alistair would not be distracted this time. He almost reached out to touch Mahahlia and she instinctively shied away from him with a glare.

'There's something wrong here, Mahahlia. You can see that can't you?' The shemlen's voice was almost gentle. Mahahlia felt her ire rising as the thoughts she had fought against all through their forest trek tried to push to the surface.

_No! The shemlen is wrong. He is lying. Damn him, he is just like Duncan. Remember who you are! You are Dalish. _

'The only thing wrong here is that you are delaying us, shemlen.' Mahahlia ducked around him, striding away. 'I know what I have to do, if you do not want to follow then go your own way.'

'What does that mean?' Alistair demanded pounding along the grassy path after her. 'What are you going to do?' He caught her by the shoulder and managed to swing her round. She glared daggers up at him.

'My duty,' she hissed between her teeth, resisting the impulse to either reach for her blades or kick him away from her. 'I am Dalish and these wolf-beasts have threatened my people. I am honour bound as one of the Elvhenen to protect all the clans of my people.'

Alistair pursed his lips, 'And what about the Grey Wardens; you took an oath to them too.'

'I took no oath,' almost quivering with rage Mahahlia stepped closer to the shemlen craning her neck to glare up at him. 'I was forced.'

'That's not –', Alistair pursed his lips. 'Becoming a Warden saved your life. You're wearing the oath pendant around your neck!' Alistair almost appeared to raise a hand as if to touch the pendant full of Darkspawn blood and Mahahlia immediately batted his hand away, stepping away from him.

'I am Dalish.' She hissed again trying to make him understand, trying to make herself believe it.

Face wreathed in dark shadow that had nothing to do with the shifting planes of dwindling light passing through the canopy Alistair stared down at her with odd grimness. 'And that's all that matters to you, isn't it?' He threw up his hands half in defeat and half in anguish. 'After all this; after Ostagar, after the Joining, and still nothing has changed with you, has it? It's still Dalish this, Elvhenen that.'

Mahahlia narrowed her eyes dangerously, even as a dart of hurt ran through her. 'There is nothing else worth caring about.' She told this fool shemlen levelly. 'I am Dalish; that is all that I am.'

Alistair just looked at her for the longest time, during which Mahahlia struggled to hold the weight of that steady, oddly serious regard. 'You know,' he said quietly after an interminable silence, 'the scary thing is you might actually believe that.'

Mahahlia didn't know what she might have said in response to that inexplicable statement because it was at that moment that the lay sister, standing a polite distance from their squabble, released an ear splitting squeal.

'Oh – look! Look at that flower. I would know that scent anywhere; Andraste's Grace! These were my mother's flower.'

The moment shattered between the two wardens and Mahahlia threw one last mutinous glare over her shoulder to Alistair and marched off through the forest in search of something to kill.

As it turned out, she didn't have far to look.

*****

In the bowels of the ancient Elven ruins the werewolves had claimed as a lair, Mahahlia dropped to her knees amid the blood and filth. Her breathing was ragged, her side burning from a Werewolf's lucky swipe. Blood caked her eyes and dried in crackling patches over her cheeks and down her neck; her hands were absolutely smothered in the crimson wash.

'Maker preserve us,' Leliana half stood, half leaned, against one of the lichen covered walls, bracing herself against the slick and cold stone, her bow lying discarded on the ground. 'It is finally over.'

Morrigan, standing further back towards the doors of the huge chamber, flexed her fingers over the length of her Oak staff meditatively. 'The bodies are changing form. T'would appear the curse has been lifted after all.' She jerked her chin towards a pile of fallen werewolves, except they were no longer hideous grey furred beasts with savage muzzles and wild eyes. No, now they lay where they had died, merely human; fragile and pink and horribly vulnerable.

Mahahlia stared for a long moment into the eyes of the nearest former werewolf, a young woman, barely more than a girl; her wide and fixed yellowish eyes still seemed to pierce Mahahlia were she knelt. The accusation in that dead regard was strong enough to burn her from beyond the Fade.

'We need to get the heart.' Crawling across the filth and the muck, clambering over the body of a human man with Swiftrunner's eyes, Mahahlia dragged herself towards the hulking body of the wolf Witherfang. She fumbled for her blade, preparing to open the great wolf from throat to abdomen and ferret out the heart. Behind her back she heard a squeak of old armour and gritted her teeth.

'There should have been another way. The Lady……'

Mahahlia drove the knife into the wolf's carcass hard enough to cause an arc of cold blood to spray forth, slicing across her face like a brand of shame. _There was no other way. I am Dalish and these monsters hurt my people! _The words did not leave the confines of her own snarled thoughts however, as she sliced through thick muscle and bone, digging into flesh growing chill with encroaching death.

_Zathrian has not told you everything. It was he who made me. He who created this curse; he has always known how to end the suffering of his own people. _The words of the so-called "Lady" echoed like a cruel joke inside the roaring emptiness of Mahahlia's thoughts. Her arms ached from the exertion of cutting, tearing, digging for the heart. She could feel her own blood, pumped so fast by her own heart, rushing forth from over a dozen biting lacerations.

……_I was once of the Dalish……my name……my name is Danaya. Zathrian……Zathrian sent us to find Witherfang – so much he did not tell us…… Please, my husband……tell him I am with the Gods……_

Danaya in the forest; a monster who was once Dalish; the memory of that bestial face in such agony would linger long in her thoughts. One of the People wearing the body of a fiend; it was a travesty that should never have been allowed to happen. Mahahlia's hand slipped and for a terrible moment she thought she would pierce the heart, ruin it, and condemn the Zathric Dalish clan to live out the curse. To live the curse just as these humans had. Her vision blurred as she clenched her blood-red fist around the haft of her dagger. Her hands were shaking almost too badly to continue.

_The Keeper has forbidden me from going into the forest after my wife; but I must know what happened to her. I……do not know that I believe my Keeper's word. I fear……I fear he has lied to me. _

……_.Zathrian has not told you everything......_

'Mahahlia?' A hand clapped down on her shoulder and she reacted on instinct, twisting at the waist, she whipped her blade up and thrust her arm forward in an upward lunge.

'Whoa!' Alistair jumped back, his hand leaping from her shoulder. 'Maker's breath; I was just trying to see if you were alright.'

Lips skinned back from her teeth, eyes and mind as wild as any werewolf, Mahahlia barely recognised her own voice. 'Don't touch me.' She saw the shemlen's eyes widen, saw his lips move soundlessly and saw him step back, broad features twisting both in shock and burgeoning anguish.

_The humans captured Zathrian's children while he was hunting. They tortured and killed his son and raped his daughter. She survived only to discover she was with child. She took her own life, preferring death to the shame of bearing a human child. _

With a strangled, wordless cry, Mahahlia thrust her hand into the sucking cavity she had dug out of the wolf's chest. Thick, sinuous muscle, tensile as rope and heavy as steel, seemed to snap around her wrist like the lips of a hideous mouth. Sending questing fingers digging within the cavity of the wolf's chest Mahahlia felt slick and cooling lung sacks scrap against her knuckles and the rasp of rib bone hard as ironbark.

_We sent word with every landship passing through the forest, begging Zathrian to end the curse, but he never answered. The humans who committed such crimes against Zathrian's family died long hence, yet this curse clings to their descendents. Tell me elf, do you too share such unreasoning hate that you would condemn children to be punished for the crimes of their fathers?_

Finally she found it, the heart of Witherfang; like clasping a full flagon the heart felt both strong and weak, full and empty. She dug her nails into the flesh of the organ and tried to wrench it out. In the end she had to withdraw her hand and used her small filleting knife to pare away the last vestiges of muscle and sinew holding the heart prisoner within the cooling body. When she finally wrenched the contested organ free she cupped it almost tenderly in both palms and rose to face her compeers.

She had thought herself ready for the looks on their faces but she had thought wrong. Alistair and Leliana both stared at her, ashen faced. Morrigan watched her with inscrutable eyes that nevertheless seemed thoughtful, curious. Mahahlia wanted to scream and hurl the bloodied heart into the face of her fellow grey warden. She wanted to dare them all to condemn her choices so she could spit on their cowardice. Instead Alistair just shook his head, lips pursed in a moue or distaste, and turned to walk towards the exit.

'We should get back to the Dalish; it'll be dark soon.'

Casting a hesitant look Mahahlia's way Leliana quickly followed after Alistair, dashing from the chamber and the carnage strewn about as quickly as her dancer's feet could take her. Cupped in Mahahlia's still palms Witherfang's heart felt cold as ice.

'Here,' Mahahlia jolted in surprise when the witch stepped forward and handed her a piece of cloth leather with which to wrap the heart in. She had not sensed the witch's approach and that was an unforgiveable lack of concentration. Clumsily she began to wrap the organ with fingers suddenly transformed all to thumbs. Morrigan sighed darkly and took the macabre bundle from her with brusque efficiency. She handled the unpleasant object with total detachment – and a certain familiarity, almost as if this was not the first time she had packaged and parcelled the disembodied organs of the newly deceased.

'You know, do you not, that this Zathrian almost certainly lied to us.' Morrigan asked a question without asking. Mahahlia had found that it was the Korcari's woman's habit to do so.

'It does not matter.' Mahahlia spoke leadenly through cold lips.

'Because he is Dalish?' Once again Morrigan posed a question that need not be a question. 'Tis curious this loyalty you give the man, when it appears clear he was more than willing to sacrifice you, and all of us, for his secrets.'

Mahahlia pursed her lips tightly and clenched her fists, still slick with Witherfang's heart blood. She bit back the fury tingling on her tongue and instead merely strode forward following in Alistair and Leliana's stead. She flatly refused to turn back and face the room of dead humans, whose only crime had been to be born to cursed stock.

_I am Dalish; how could I have done anything differently? _The question mocked her, even as it whispered again and again in the contours of her mind. When an answer came it was not a pleasant epiphany. _You could have been Mahahlia and not just Dalish; you could have used your own mind to decide what to do, but instead you let your fear control you. _

When she returned to the upper reaches of the ruin to find Keeper Zathrian waiting for her, suspicion and worry drawing his harsh features tight across his bones, Mahahlia knew herself betrayed. When she handed Zathrian the heart she had torn from Witherfang's body, she felt the weight of Alistair's eyes on her – and for the first time, she could not meet them.

Listening to Zathrian's vitriolic excuses, the cold, bitter bite of hatred left undiminished for centuries in his every utterance, Mahahlia realised something that left her sick to her stomach. She was ashamed to call herself Dalish.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter Fifteen: Bastard **

Alistair sat beside the camp fire, a look of bemusement writ large upon his features. The chill of gathering night clung to his back while the fire's heat almost scalded his front; the contrast making him both sweaty and shivering. Still he barely noticed he was so enraptured by what was going on across the fireside.

'Oooh but you must! You have such beautiful calves; you must show them off for all to see.' Leliana's voice rose with excitement, growing higher and sweeter even despite the assortment of hair pins and odd bits of strange girlish frippery she had clasped between her teeth. 'Blue satin, I think – with a heel just so,' the bard paused in what she was doing to measure out a couple of inches between thumb and index finger of her right hand. 'And the lace straps climbing your legs; yes. It will be wonderful. I am so excited.'

'Satin is not very durable.' Mahahlia sat at Leliana's feet on the grass the huge Mabari draped over her legs to keep them warm, with her head tilted up and back a little so she could stare up at the bard. She looked more than a bit incredulous herself.

'Durable; durable?' The bard clucked her tongue fingers moving in a blur of speed through the thick glossy tresses of Mahahlia's fully unbound hair. 'I do not understand this Ferelden thing of ugly footwear; you _must_ have pretty shoes.'

'Must I?' Amusement tinged the elf's words as she settled back to allow Leliana to continue to brush out her hair. Alistair didn't know whether to be offended or relieved that after the horrible debacle with the Dalish Mahahlia had finally started to warm up to them again on the long road to Redcliffe. Or at least she had warmed up to Leliana; Alistair supposed it must be some sort of girl thing. Leliana's skill with hair braiding excusing the fact that she was an evil _shemlen_ as far as Mahahlia was concerned.

'Yes, of course.' Leliana sounded surprised that anyone could consider satin shoes anything other than a necessity of life. 'And a dress. You would look so lovely in silk. Something light and airy to compliment your skin tone.' The bard was almost trilling with delight as she wove Mahahlia's golden brown hair into two intricate braids close to her scalp, leaving her pointed ears revealed. 'You have such a beautiful inner glow. I am envious.'

Mahahlia still seemed more indulgently amused than anything else and Alistair, completely forgetting any notion of being circumspect in his close observation of all this girliness, suddenly found himself on the receiving end of a startling blue regard made all the more compelling for the fact that there wasn't a sheaf of thick hair to distract the eye. Mahahlia's eyes sparkled with wickedness as she fondled a collection of silk ribbons in various shades that Leliana just happened to have in her pack.

'What about him?' Mahahlia asked nodding her head just a fraction towards Alistair, as much as she could while Leliana worked her magic. Alistair felt like a hare in a snare. His eyes widened as that evil grin quivered at the edges of the elf's mouth. 'Would he look good in silks?'

'Hey now,' Alistair moved his hands as if to ward off the scrutiny he suddenly found himself under from both Mahahlia and Leliana. 'We've had this discussion. I'm only wearing a dress if it's order to scare darkspawn.'

Mahahlia just grinned and handed up a forest green ribbon to Leliana. The bard however decided to torture him by taking the suggestion seriously. 'Something in a brocade I think.' She said after a thoughtful moment expertly weaving the ribbon into the braids clinging to Mahahlia's scalp. 'Nothing too heavy, but we must show off those wonderful shoulders.' She clucked her tongue. 'And Alistair has such lovely legs too; we should show off those manful thighs.'

'You will leave my manful thighs alone!' Alistair knew that not even the excuse of sitting too near the fire could excuse the burn of scarlet painting his face from the roots of his hair to crawl down his neck.

'Oh and he blushes; is it not lovely?' Leliana smiled with just as much evil innocence as Mahahlia in that moment. 'Red suits you Alistair. I am thinking a slashed sleeve doublet in red and gold with black leggings.' The bard nodded. 'Yes that would be delightful.'

Alistair's ears were throbbing with the force of his blushing. 'Need I remind you that brocade and leggings aren't very effective against darkspawn?' He knew he sounded defensive but he just couldn't help it. Maybe he should just run off and join Morrigan in her den for the night. Anything had to be better than this. 'And it's not like we're going to be attending any balls any time soon.' He crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at the evil women grinning at him.

Leliana, finally finished with Mahahlia's hair, managed to miss the whole point of what he had meant and skip only to the worst part of the sentence. 'Oh yes! We must go to a ball.' She clapped her hands together in delight. 'One where there is music and dancing and tales to be told. How wonderful of you to think of it Alistair.'

'What?' Alistair gaped. 'I didn't – that's not – this is not a summer progress! We're fighting a Blight here, you know. Not playing courtier.'

Leliana gave him a very odd look. 'Not all battles are won on a battlefield Alistair.' She said and something surprisingly sharp and yet enigmatic glimmered in her eyes; reminiscent of the flash of a concealed blade pulled free from a sheath under moonlight. 'Sometimes wars are won, and lost, with far subtler arts.'

Alistair resisted the desire to shiver and instead obstinately shook his head. 'Somehow I doubt the Archdemon is going to be defeated with a night of high class roistering.' He grumbled into his chest refusing to look at either of his tormentors.

When he finally peeked up at the ladies once more Leliana merely shrugged still looking all mysterious and wise beyond her years as she and Mahahlia packed away their hairdressing paraphernalia. Alistair watched, confused and amazed by just how much stuff was needed to do a woman's hair. 'Perhaps we shall be lucky, yes?' Leliana suggested after a moment. 'And this Arl Eamon will have a ball we can go to. I do so love music and dancing.'

Alistair winced at the mention of Arl Eamon, and the reminder of how close they were to Redcliffe. They had about another days trek before they reached the village and then, well, then things could get a bit awkward. 'Arl Eamon isn't really the ball type of person.' He argued weakly.

'What does an Arl do?' Mahahlia sat forward to scratch Lethallin's ears and the Mabari stretched out his powerful back legs in sleep whining contentedly before returning to utter stillness draped over the elf's legs like a particularly heavy, breathing blanket.

'An Arl?' Alistair blinked surprised by the question, but then he supposed he should not be. Mahahlia didn't seem to have much of a true picture of what human life was like – at least not beyond whatever horror stories the Dalish had told her, anyway. Alistair frowned again, thinking about Zathrian and the rest of the Dalish they had met, and once again remembering that look on Mahahlia's face as they had left the clan. He hoped he never saw a look like that on her face again. It had reminded him of how he must have looked when Flemeth told him Duncan and the king were dead.

'Well, they're sort of like Keepers I suppose.' He said distractedly in answer to the question.

'They are Keepers?' Mahahlia shifted forward again, resting her arms on Lethallin's torso and peering through the flickering orange-gold shadows of the firelight at Alistair, all of a sudden intently interested.

'Well,' Alistair amended, 'Not exactly. But they are responsible for everyone living in their Arling. The banns in nearby bannorns too; they're answerable to an Arl usually.' Alistair gathered his thoughts before continuing. 'During war time the Arls and the two teyrns unify the rest of the banns and people of the bannorn to fight for the king and for Ferelden.' Alistair explained warming to his narrative. 'Arl Eamon was Cailan's uncle. The last queen, not Anora Cailan's wife, but his mother, well she was Eamon's sister.'

Mahahlia nodded slowly clearly recording to memory what Alistair said. It made him feel all warm inside that she was listening to him and taking his words seriously. Still her next words caused Alistair's spirits to plummet. 'And this Arl Eamon raised you?'

Uh-oh. Think of something Alistair! Fast man; they're both staring at you. Which they were. Leliana, having returned from putting away her ribbons to sit on the log just behind Mahahlia, looked equally curious by this turn in the conversation. Alistair went into a full blown panic. 'Did I say that? No, I meant that -' his roving gaze fixed on Lethallin growling soft snores as the big mabari twitched in his sleep, 'that _dogs _raised me. Big smelly dogs from the Anderfels. Yes that's right; dogs.'

In the brief silence that followed Alistair could feel whatever tiny amount of respect he had been able to garner from Mahahlia seep away as she cocked an eyebrow and looked sceptically from him to Lethallin and back again. What she said however surprised him. 'Then how did you learn to talk?'

'Uh – these were talking dogs.' Alistair knew he was going a rather unattractive shade of puce as the words continued to drop from his flapping lips despite his best intentions. 'Didn't you know dogs in the Anderfels could talk?'

Leliana was giving him a very strange look, or rather was looking at him like he was a very strange man, but it was Mahahlia's eyes he couldn't look away from. He watched her scratching the top of Lethallin's head, between his ears, with desperate attention, almost sweating with nervousness. 'Did these talking dogs also know how to walk upright and wear clothes?'

Alistair nodded rapidly, 'Yes, yes. Bloody clever those Anderfel dogs, you know.'

'I see,' Mahahlia regarded him coolly and it was blatantly obvious to Alistair that she could clearly see he was a liar – and a bad one. 'So then you left the Anderfels and your dog pack to live in Redcliffe?'

'Well they were expecting a new litter of pups,' Alistair was experiencing something like an out of body experience, he heard the words but could scarce believe that he was really saying them. 'And there was only so much cheese to go around, so off I went. Off to Redcliffe……' he trailed off for a moment before rallying, 'And then on to the Abbey to be a Templar.'

Alistair had explained about the whole Templar thing a few weeks back and Mahahlia had responded with her usual blank indifference. He supposed that for a Dalish elf that hadn't even known what an Apostate was the whole notion of Templars would be equally puzzling. In a strange way it had actually been comforting how little she seemed to care about the strange details of his life. It almost made him feel like he could tell her about Maric and the bastard thing and it wouldn't make any difference. _Almost._

Now Mahahlia looked at him with that piercing yet inscrutable look in her eyes and Alistair felt himself wilting like a puddle of snow slush. 'And then you became a Grey Warden?' She asked dryly.

'Yup, from dog to warden; I've had a full life.'

'And perhaps next you can chop your legs off at the knees and go live with the Durgen'len?' Mahahlia's smile was sharp as one of her dar'misu. Alistair looked down into his hands, knotted together in his lap.

'Well I've always wanted to grow a beard down to my toes.'

Silence again, broken only by the crackle and pop of the fire and the sound of Lethallin breathing. It was absolute agony for Alistair; he could feel both women staring at him as he kept his head bowed and knotted his hands together in his lap. Finally, unable to take it anymore he Jumped to his feet. Feigning a loud yawn and stretching he did his best to avoid looking at either woman.

'It's late I think I'll turn in.' Grinning stupidly Alistair spun around and almost ran full tilt towards his tent.

'Goodnight Shemlen.' Mahahlia's voice lilted over the crackle of the fire and Lethallin's half barked snores making Alistair feel absolutely wretched as he crawled into his tent and sealed away the rest of the world. He had lied to his fellow warden and very soon he was going to have to admit to it. If Mahahlia chose to gut him for it he supposed he would have no one to blame but himself.

******

Mahahlia walked the dead roads, her feet in blue satin heels crunching over a glittering, serpent toothed carpet of broken glass shards. On either side of her, creating a claustrophobic tunnel, stood walls of mirrors. Within those darkling reflections thousands of maligned and contorted forms writhed and twisted in the light of innumerate funerary pyres.

'Come Lethallin, you shall miss the celebration.' Tamlen stood before her, further up the long corridor of mirrors. His golden hair was gone and rusty red drool slathered his sharp chin from loose and gaping lips. Dark and angry shadows crowded his sunken eyes. Mahahlia shivered with revulsion deep inside as her dream self reached out to place her hand in his. She noticed that the blood caking his fingers was old and flaking while the blood painting her palms was fresh and still warm.

'I don't understand.' She said glancing to the side to see herself reflected in the mirrors. She wore not her Dalish leathers but instead a gown of silks, white as the inner bark of a oak tree and picked out in green and gold embroidering. The whorls and swirls dancing over the folds of the gown seemed almost to be words written in a language that made her head hurt to read. There was blood trailing from the train of the gown and across the broken glass at their feet. There was blood covering her face like a mask and bathing her throat.

Tamlen smiled at her, teeth yellow and rusty from blood and other things, 'You don't need to.' He took up her other hand and shifted his centre of balance pulling her dream self around almost as if in a strange and languid dance. 'It's better if you don't understand.'

'What is better?' Mahahlia wanted to pull away from Tamlen, she wanted to force herself to wake and escape the dream, but she could not. She did not control herself in this dream. In the mirrors she saw what looked like a great shemlen city ablaze against a sky of ash black. She saw a tower rising from above the ruin and she saw darkspawn thick as a swarm of ants filling the burning streets. She almost thought she heard the screaming of women and children as the city burned.

Behind her back Tamlen stepped close, encircling her waist with his arms grown too thin and long to be purely elven any longer. 'Do you see it? Do you see how beautiful it is?' She could see his reflection in the glass along with her own, even as she looked beyond it to the horror of destruction caught within the glass.

'All I see is death.' She whispered.

'Yessss,' Tamlen's sibilant whisper nipped at her ear, breathing filth and corruption all over her in a scalding wave. 'And it is beautiful. Life is never so beautiful as when it ends.' He pointed one almost claw-like finger towards the mirror. 'They run like vermin, the shemlen do, yet as they run and flee, or stand and fight for their lives, they are beautiful. Just as our goddess is beautiful.'

Mahahlia shook her head, struggling weakly even in her dream body that did not obey her, 'No. No goddess of the Elvhenen would have anything to do with this.'

Tamlen laughed, 'Ah Lethallin, do you not see? We are not Elvhenen now. We are something greater, something more.'

Mahahlia shivered even as she felt tears streak down her bloody cheeks, 'No……no.' She did not want to hear it. She did not want to hear what she knew Tamlen was about to say.

'Yesss,' he repeated again. 'You hear it, I know you do. You who have drunk deep of the blood not just once but twice. You and I, we are to sit at our Goddess' right and left hands when the horde lays waste to all the shemlen lands.'

'No……no……NO!' She fought but could not break free of Tamlen's hold on her.

In the mirror Mahahlia could see the silhouette of the great dragon perched atop that high city tower. She saw the jets of violet flame roar forth from the fallen goddess' maws to burn away the bones of fallen humans and set the clouds themselves aflame. She could feel the dragon's eyes on her from the depths of the mirror.

_Soon little one; soon you will serve my purpose. _

******

Alistair would never be able to say what it was that woke him that night. It wasn't like he was usually a light sleeper. Still one moment he was asleep and the next he was awake, alert and listening for – well - he wasn't sure. That's when he realised there was someone just outside his tent. Propping himself up on his elbows and reaching for the short sword he kept beside his sleeping roll Alistair was about to reach for the fastening of his tent flap when it opened and quite without warning his tent was suddenly a lot more crowded.

'Whoa – what -?' Dropping the blade so he could hitch his blanket protectively up around his chest Alistair blinked blearily through the spotty darkness. He could barely see anything but the scent of pine and some exotic, but sweet, musk told him exactly who was crawling into his tent, shoving his feet out of the way so she could sit inside at the foot of the bedroll and still draw the tent flap closed again. 'Mahahlia? What's wrong?'

'You said you had dreams.' It was strange to hear the elf's voice, so flat and dead and so very close, but still not be able to see her. 'After your Joining. You said you had dreams.'

Understanding crashed through Alistair and he almost reached out in the darkness to where he thought the elf was coiled up by the tent flap. 'You had a nightmare.'

There was silence for a moment and if it hadn't been for the fact that he could hear her soft breathing and feel what he thought was her hip against his feet (which reminded him to move his feet) Alistair might have believed Mahahlia had vanished as suddenly as she had arrived.

'Yes.' She said finally. Nothing more and nothing less.

Alistair sighed, 'I'm sorry. I should have said something.' He shook his head ruefully. 'All Grey Wardens have the dreams. It's part of what allows us to sense the horde.' He sighed. 'Duncan told me that some of the older Grey Wardens could even hear the Archdemon; that's how Duncan knew this was a real Blight.'

'Do you?' The question cut through the night like a blade.

'Do I what?' It was strange and unnerving with Mahahlia sat here in his tent. Alistair was almost glad for the near total darkness, acutely aware of the fact that he was in nothing more than his small clothes. Maker, what if she was too! The thought sent all manner of odd tingles through him from tip to toe (but mostly centring somewhere roughly in the middle – somewhere that he really didn't want to be thinking about).

'Do you hear the Archdemon?' Mahahlia, thank the maker, did not seem to notice anything amiss. Alistair released a shaky breath.

'No, of course not. I mean I've seen the dragon, flashes of it anyhow, during the dreams, but I haven't heard it.' A niggling suspicion came to Alistair and he opened his mouth to voice it, 'Mahahlia have you -'

'Will they go away?' She interrupted him still with that sharp, almost impatient yet leaden tone of voice. Alistair winced. 'These dreams, will they fade?'

'It gets easier, I think.' He said carefully. 'I think the fact that this is a Blight makes it worse.'

'But they do not fade.' Her tone was so dejected Alistair did reach for her. Unsurprisingly almost as soon as his fingers found the soft, yet bony, curve of her shoulder, she flinched away from him. Still, seeing as how she had invaded his tent in the first place, he wasn't going to apologise for trying to do nothing more than comfort her.

'I am stuck with these dreams for the rest of my life.' She said and that was when Alistair said something very stupid.

'Yes, all thirty years of it.' As soon as the words were out he realised just how crashingly foolish they were. 'Uh – I mean – oh Maker I'm an arse.'

'Thirty years?' Mahahlia's voice was a venomous whisper and it suddenly occurred to Alistair to wonder if she was armed or not, and if she was whether a Dalish elf's night vision was better than his. He swallowed audibly.

'Um yes, did I, ahem, did I not mention that before?' Unable to stifle a nervous chuckle that sounded disturbingly like the squeal of a stuck pig Alistair cleared his throat hoarsely and forced the words out. 'It's the Taint, you see. Grey Wardens only live about thirty years from the point they take the Oath before the Darkspawn Taint starts to well,' he swallowed again. 'I don't really know what it does. All I know is that the older Grey Wardens start having more nightmares than normal and go off on a one way trip to the Deep Roads of Orzammar.'

What happened next was only surprising in that Alistair managed to keep his head on his shoulders and all his blood in his body. In a flurry of darkness and a matter of scant seconds Alistair was once more alone in his tent with the tent flap open and the cold night air rushing inside in the wake of Mahahlia's sudden departure. Groaning Alistair fumbled with the flap, sealing it closed before he flopped back down onto his bedroll. He was an idiot; truly and completely. He didn't dare leave his tent only to make more of a fool of himself and he hoped, truly he did, that the soft muffled sounds of weeping he could hear beyond the canvas walls of his tent was just the wind in the trees. Guilty and confused Alistair curved his pillow over his head to blot out the sounds and fell into his own dark and twisted dreams.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter Sixteen: Confessions and Reflections **

'This woman wore live birds in her hair?' The road to Redcliffe was a long and boring one. Summer heat had crept up on the spring damp and the dust track roads hummed with insects and the bloom of wild flowers. Wandering along beside Leliana with Lethallin at her side Mahahlia felt almost content.

'Indeed,' the shemlen woman's greenish eyes glinted in the sunlight as she savoured her tale, 'And you can imagine, frightened little birds have loose bowels,' the Orlesian's lips twisted in a half-moue of amused distaste, 'and the woman never washed her hair.'

'Poor birds,' Lethallin bumped his large head against her hip and Mahahlia reached down to scratch between his ears. Up ahead Alistair led the way, obviously familiar with the roads, while Morrigan sauntered along the empty road between the chattering Mahahlia and Leliana and the almost-templar, surrounded by an almost palpable aura of solitude.

'Is this Val Royeaux a big place?' It felt almost traitorous, as a Dalish, to express curiosity about such fundamentally shemlen things and places, yet Leliana was gifted in her craft and her words painted pictures both exotic and enticing to Mahahlia. She had no will wish to deny her curiosity any longer. After their excursion to the Brecilian forest Mahahlia had resolved to make the best of her situation and had decided, in light of this, that learning more of the shemlen way of life could hardly be detrimental to her own cause and, might in fact, aid her survival while cut adrift form her own kind. She did not want to end up like Zathrian, after all. Mahahlia shivered just thinking of that hateful Keeper and her fingers twitched remembering Witherfang's cold blood clinging to skin of her palms. She had thought her hands would never wash clean, and even now she could sometimes smell the blood, deep ingrained into her flesh.

'Oh my dear,' Leliana all but cooed shaking her from darkening thoughts. 'Val Royeaux is the jewel of all Thedas. The cathedral, the vaulting towers; so beautiful. The people are pretty enough, it is true, but the city has a beauty all its own.'

'We Dalish are not allowed to build our own cities,' Mahahlia said softly, wondering vaguely what the Elvhenen would build if they could. Would the founding of a new Dales be fair or foul? Would her people build underground reminiscent of all those ancient ruins in the Brecilian, or would they build graceful spires and vaulting heights like those Leliana spoke of with such rapture? Caught in her own thoughts Mahahlia was surprised when Leliana reached over swiftly and gave her shoulder a gentle caress. The Dalish elf startled, shying away instinctively, and blinked up at the shemlen woman who flushed a little and shuffled back a step.

'Do not be sad,' Leliana said a little awkwardly but undoubtedly sincerely. 'The Maker did not make us for sorrow.'

Mahahlia quirked an eyebrow. 'Your Maker did not make me.'

Leliana instantly opened her mouth to dispute this and Mahahlia felt her lips quiver in anticipation. She enjoyed teasing the shemlen woman about her beliefs. Still the other woman was not like Alistair, and catching sight of the glimmer in Mahahlia's eyes she merely pursed her lips together and swallowed her proselytising. 'I see that look.' She shook her head frowning but not annoyed. 'You are wicked and teasing but I am onto your game.'

Mahahlia just favoured her with a sunny smile and trotted along the road listening to the song of the birds and the hum of the bees. Honeysuckle scented the air, thick and sweet, and made her feel drowsy. Lethallin, padding along beside her, lathed a rough tongue up her bare thigh and she squeaked and almost fell into Leliana.

'Bad dog!' Both women were laughing as the big dog pandered to the attention barking noisily and running around in a circle trying to chase his stub of a tail. The commotion attracted the attention of the witch and Alistair who backtracked and ambled over.

'Has the foul beast finally lost its tiny mind?' Morrigan watched Lethallin without any sign of affection. She propped her fists to her hips and blew an errant strand of raven dark hair from her brow. The Kocari woman's swamp pale cheeks were flushed from the beating sun. Alistair, caked in mail, was pinking and damp with sweat but he grinned as he watched Lethallin flop onto his back and roll around in the dry dirt.

'I think he's trying to tell us something.' He suggested pulling his water flagon was his belt and frowning when he discovered the thing was mostly empty already.

'Tis so?' Morrigan eyed him askance. 'Perhaps madness is catching if you think you can discern wisdom from a dumb beast, Alistair.'

'You are all dumb shemlen beasts to me.' Mahahlia interrupted the sniping succinctly, flinging her own water pouch towards Alistair, who caught it clumsily before the flagon could hit the dusty road. Squatting down beside Lethallin she dug her fingers into the mabari's muscled flank and rubbed firmly. Almost salivating with happiness Lethallin's tongue lolled so far out of his mouth it almost licked the cart road.

'Are we far from Redcliffe Alistair?' Leliana dropped down into a crouch so she too could fondle the dog, scratching his ears and laughing when the lumbering beast slathered her knuckles with a slimy tongue.

'No,' busy indulging the dog (or pretending to be disgusted by the whole affair) none of the three women noticed the slight tension creeping into Alistair's voice and stance. 'The village is just over the next rise.' Rubbing a hand over his chin Alistair shifted in his armour and glanced up at the pale sky cradling the blazing sun. 'We could stop for lunch for a few hours and still make it to Redcliffe long before nightfall.'

'Indeed I saw a lovely spot in a meadow just a few yards back yonder,' Leliana leapt to her feet. 'We can have a picnic. It will be lovely.'

'You a complete nitwit,' Morrigan told the other shemlen woman. 'That you should also be a mouthpiece for the religious twaddle that has such a strangle hold on this land surprises me not a whit.'

'Morrigan.' Mahahlia sighed standing up slowly as Leliana gasped, flushing angrily and turned towards the mage, eyes flashing. Nevertheless both women backed down as soon as she stood up. The observation of how easily and thoughtlessly these shemlen looked to an elf for leadership would have amused Mahahlia greatly had she been the sort for inner reflection. Instead she focused on the immediate. 'Eat first, insults later.' She told the witch. Morrigan arched a brow, seemed to consider whether or not she would argue, and then merely acquiesced with her silence. A touch to the other woman's elbow was enough to placate Leliana and then they were free to stop for lunch.

Over a light meal of bread and cheese and salted meats, Mahahlia found herself indulging in unusual contemplation. The meadow was lovely and lying on her stomach in the high grasses lazily watching butterflies dance over the veldt of green and gold and purple wild flowers, Mahahlia worked to fill her senses with the sweetness of the afternoon. Propping her head on her folded arms she allowed her eyes to slip to half-mast. It was almost possible to imagine she was with her clan sunning herself on the roadside as the aravel travelled around Ferelden. Strangely, although the fantasy brought her a soft comfort, she found that it wasn't as _necessary _to pretend to be home amid the Mahariel as it had been a few weeks prior. Maybe it was due to Zathrian and the realisation that not all Dalish were beyond reproach, or maybe it was due to her current travelling companions. Mahahlia didn't know and was less than eager to consider the matter in greater depth. She fancied that if she started to really consider how easily a lifetime's worth of teachings could be overturned by a soppy storyteller and an acerbic witch Mahahlia might have to face the possibility that the world was not the simple black and white realm she had always thought it was. Better by far to ignore the entire matter completely.

A large honey bee buzzed too close to her face as it made its unsteady progress from one plant to the next and Mahahlia squinted one eye open. It was at that moment that she heard, and felt the vibrations, of heavy feet tramping over flowers and grasses towards her. For a moment Mahahlia felt like trying to lie very still, hidden as she was in the deep grass, ain the hope that maybe then the fool shemlen would continue walking right by her. Sadly not even this shemlen was that ignorant of the way of wild life to fail to notice her location.

'Er, can we – er – talk?' Alistair loomed above her, the sun at his back just as it had been the very first time they had met in Ostagar. The overall effect threw him into almost complete silhouette and managed to give the impression that the shemlen was far taller and more imposing than he was in truth. Rolling onto her back in the grass and refusing to stand simply because his presence looming above her was slightly unnerving, Mahahlia shaded her eyes with one hand and squinted all the way up at him.

'I am confident that I call talk, shemlen. I am undecided at your proficiency however.'

The other grey warden snorted sourly and collapsed down onto his knees heavily beside her. Mahahlia winced at the thoughtless way he crushed a patch of heather under his big ungainly bulk. 'Funny. By the way you're spending too much time with Morrigan.' He told her. 'You're even beginning to sound like the mean old shrew.'

'She's not that old,' Mahahlia pointed out, 'and I don't think shrews are particularly mean.'

Alistair said nothing to that and for a moment an awkward silence reigned. Mahahlia hoped fervently that he wasn't going to bring up the night she had fled to his tent after the last nightmare. Even thinking about that moment of supreme weakness and stupidity made her stomach swirl and knot with self-reproach. If only Morrigan or Leliana had been grey wardens too, then, maybe, Mahahlia could confide in one of them the details of her nightmares. She longed to be able to confide in someone older and wiser than herself. She longed for her Keeper and Hahren Paivel, or even Follower Merrill; she longed to share her burden with _someone_. She longed to be able to speak freely of her fears, and the terrible biting echo of the dragon goddess in her ears. Yet all she had was this childish shemlen man whom she did not trust and did not respect. She would sooner bite out her own tongue than confide weakness to him.

'There's something I need to tell you,' Alistair finally spoke up and Mahahlia simply lay there, like a lizard basking under the sun, waiting for him to get on with it. Flicking his eyes over her face in a skittering nervous dance before turning his head to stare sightlessly across the meadow Alistair cleared his throat hoarsely. 'It's about Arl Eamon, and well……I'm a bastard.'

Mahahlia blinked as much at Alistair's steel clenched jaw as his nonsensical words. 'You are a bastard?' She repeated blankly.

He frowned moodily at the innocent question. 'As in born out of wedlock, before you start getting any oh so funny ideas.' He almost snapped, jaw pulsing like Lethallin chewing on a particularly meaty bone. Mahahlia just looked at him. She had no idea what the fool shem was talking about, but wasn't about to admit it. Alistair, obviously agitated, started pulling up stems of grass with scrambling fingers as he spoke. 'I lied before, about being raised by dogs I mean.'

'I'd gathered that.' Mahahlia pointed out dryly. 'There are no talking dogs in the Anderfels or anywhere else.' She knew this because she had asked Morrigan and Leliana both just to be sure after Alistair had first told his daft story. (Mahahlia had conversed with a talking oak tree – she wasn't about to assume that only people could speak, after all).

'Yes well,' Alistair shrugged shiftily, 'the truth is, I was taken in by Arl Eamon and raised in the castle at Redcliffe after my mother died giving birth to me.' Flinging a fistful of uprooted grass away from him Alistair scratched roughly at his cheek, bits of grass still clinging to his fingers. 'My mother was a servant in the palace and she……well……' the shemlen rubbed his hand over the entirety of his face, covering his eyes as he spoke. 'King Maric was my father. Arl Eamon took me in and hid me so Queen Rowan wouldn't find out.' Lowering his hand Alistair peered at her with wide, seemingly frightened eyes. 'Cailan was my half-brother.'

There was another moment of extremely uncomfortable silence. Alistair was staring at her rather desperately and Mahahlia felt decidedly uneasy. She had understood every word Alistair had spoken, yet his meaning confused her. Among her clan there were unions between one clan member or another, wherein they chose to forsake the chance to mate with all others save that one other clanmate, and she supposed that was similar to a shemlen marriage, but such unions were hardly required or expected of Elvhenen. Alistair spoke the word "bastard" as if it was a foul thing, and Mahahlia could not understand why. Unless the brief union that had made him was in some way forced then why should it matter? Among the Mahariel it was common for brief couplings among clan mates to take place and sometimes children came from such and sometimes they did not, it did not really matter and no one tried to claim exclusivity unless they had undergone a union, in which case everyone else in the clan knew this.

Still Alistair was clearing waiting for her to say something, 'So……you are a king, then?'

'No!' Alistair startled like a scared Halla, 'Of course not. Nothing like that. It was made very clear to me that any uprisings trying to claim my birthright would not be appreciated.'

Mahahlia was completely confused. Ferelden politics was a mass of confusion and barely defined concepts in her mind as it was. She could not begin to fathom why Alistair would tell her this, or why it seemed to upset him so much. Perhaps some of her bafflement showed on her face because Alistair tried to explain.

'It's just, with Cailan dead……I wanted you to know in case Eamon said something. I wanted you to find out from me.'

Why would Eamon say anything at all about this? Mahahlia had nothing in her life that would help her grasp this tangled web of words and insinuations and make it come clear. If Alistair was not a king then he was not a king. If he was then he was. Mahahlia understood enough to realise that Alistair being a king would make a difference in their journey. Certainly she understood that kings had armies and had Alistair an army that would make their task considerably easier, but as it appeared he did not have an army of any sort Mahahlia could not see what the concern was. Unless of course Alistair was hoping to gain an army in Redcliffe?

'So you will become a king when we arrive in Redcliffe?' She asked cautiously. 'This is how we will gain an army of shemlen?'

Alistair was staring at her equally baffled by her bafflement, 'Uh no, not exactly. It's just with Loghain stealing the throne – well, don't you see? I'm Maric's son too. That means my claim is better than Loghain's or his daughter Anora's.' He shook his head. 'But it won't come to that. I'm just a secret bastard – and I don't even want to be king.'

'Oh.' Mahahlia blinked in the sunlight. So the shemlen was not a king nor did he want to be; why then had he told her all this? Was being a bastard some sort of crime in Ferelden? Could these shemlen somehow tell that a shem baby had been born without a marriage? Did it make some sort of difference in the reproduction of shemlen that babes only be born after marriage? Mahahlia's thoughts looped and tangled together and her brow creased. 'I do not know what to say.'

This seemed to be the worst thing she could have said. Alistair hung his head dejectedly shoulders slumping. 'I……I suppose I should have expected that.' He said stiffly still not looking at her. 'I'm sorry I lied before - it's just, it's just that……'

'That what?' Mahahlia finally sat up. 'Shemlen you are making no sense. Do not make me hit you until you talk sense.' She warned entirely seriously and entirely prepared to enact the threat. Alistair looked up then, peering at her like a startled pigeon.

'I didn't want you to think differently about me because I'm Maric's son.' He finally admitted through tight lips. 'I've been treated differently because of it my entire life. Even Duncan kept me out of the fighting because I was Maric's son. I didn't want it to change things between us.'

Mahahlia stared at the ridiculous shemlen beside her in stunned silence for a moment. Then abruptly she smacked him hard across the top of the head. 'Hey!' Recoiling backwards away from her hand Alistair rubbed his head and blinked at her stupidly, 'Ow that hurt! What was that for?'

'Fool shemlen.' Mahahlia jumped to her feet brushing grass and insects of her leathers and fixed Alistair with a withering look harsh enough to frost over the face of the sun. 'I would not care if you were son to your precious Maker himself.' She told him calmly. 'You will always be an idiot to me.'

With another backhanded slap to his thick, yet empty, skull as she passed Mahahlia trotted off to collect the rest of the party. Stupid shemlen and his stupid nonsense; shaking her head Mahahlia summarily dismissed the fool from her thoughts and thus did not bother to turn around in time to see the look of pure wonder her words had inadvertently provoked upon Alistair's face.


	19. Interlude Two

_A/N: Hi there to everyone reading and reviewing; here's another interlude - as you'll see I'm widening the cast a little bit. Please tell me what you think as I'm new to Dragon Age Fic and would like to know what you all think of my take on the characters ;)_

**Interlude Two: A Time To Die; A Time To Despair; A Time to Live**

Arl Rendon Howe was a snivelling rodent of aman, but then, Zevran had found that most men who would pay others to do their killing for them usually were. This was not to say he was contemptuous of the rodent; on the contrary he knew from experience that rats were surprisingly tenacious and vicious as far these things go (especially when fighting skinny elven whorehouse boys for their supper). No, instead it was merely the first descriptive adjective to pop into his head when he finally deigned to make his presence in Denerim known to this man. All the same the man's first words to Zevran were not ones inclined to make a favourable impression.

'You're an elf,' said the Arl looking Zevran up and down from his lightweight leather boots and greaves to his equally lightweight leather tunic (all the better for a quick escape after a swift backstab) to his pale hair and pointed ears. Zevran sighed. The constant stating of the obvious these Fereldens were so fond of was growing tedious.

He smiled, baring teeth, 'Yes. You are indeed correct in your assertion: I am an elf. I am also an assassin and a Crow.' He quirked an eyebrow at Arl Rat. 'I believe that is the more pertinent of my many fine attributes, yes?' Ostentatiously glancing around the draughty, dark and (still) stinking interior parlour of the Arl of Denerim's keep Zevran made a show of playing with the gloved fingers of one hand, idly flexing those fingers and watching the supple leather crease and relax with the movements.

******

Oh dear.

Dying was not quite the experience Wynne had imagined it to be, not that she was the sort of woman to spend that much time considering her own demise. It was very dark, that was one thing she noticed. Not like the Fade she was familiar with, which was a place of white light and wavering colour reminiscent of a desert viewed through a veil of water.

As Wynne's legs gave way underneath her and she fell to the cold stone of the tower she could feel the crushing heaviness of her body as she had never known it before; old bones and sagging flesh wore on her like chains and lead weights. The drumbeat of her heart, once so strong as to be the silent background to her very existence, stuttered into stillness. As her cheekbone cracked against the unforgiving stone Wynne's last conscious thought as she heard the fade demon's death screams, was for Petra and the children. She could not leave them alone and defenceless! Who would protect them? Who would save the tower? Maker! There was so much left to do; so many who needed her. Now was no good time to die.

She could not leave her duty unfinished!

As life and sensation bled away into all-encompassing darkness and Wynne almost lost herself to the despair of a death she was not prepared for she was suddenly jolted back to some semblance of awareness by the strangest of sensations. There was something here with her; here in the black emptiness of death. There was something embracing her, gathering her old and aching spirit in a firm hold that would not let her soul spread and dissipate. A great sense of love and companionship spread through her entire being. it tasted of fine wine and sunlight; she thought she heard the sound of her lost baby's gurgled laughter just before the Chantry took him from her. Her heart twisted now as it had done then – and life, both bitter and vital, returned to her. Light and colour returned as well; her heart picked up the old and familiar rhythm once again. Wynne felt the sharp point of red pain where her hip pressed uncomfortably against unforgiving stone; her skin quivered under the sparkle touch of Petra's desperate healing magic. Wynne finally opened her eyes once again.

Oh dear; oh dear. She thought even as she took charge of the apprentices once again. This was most unexpected.

******

Howe-Rodent did not look pleased in fact he looked like a man who has just smelled something foul only to find that same foulness is covering the sole of one of his nice shiny boots (which, alas, had happened to Zevran himself more than once in the short time he had been in this strange country. He just did not understand the Ferelden veneration of filthy dogs or why these people seemed happy to wade through acres of said venerable hounds' excrement). 'I don't trust elves. The Antivan Crows did not say they would be sending an……elf.'

'Oh? That is interesting; especially that you would think the Crows would care to tell you such a thing.' Zevran smiled and shrugged enjoying the spark of affront he saw in the human's eyes. 'Personally I do not trust anyone.' He continued as if not noticing the pursing of the other man's lips under the shadow of his bulbous and sharply hooked nose. 'Perhaps this elven mistrust is a cultural thing, yes?' Wandering over to the far wall to examine a dulled and frayed tapestry of – yes indeed – dogs! Zevran shot a sly glance sideways towards Howe. 'Tell me, would it help matters if I walked around on my knees and pretended to be a dwarf?'

'It would help, elf, if you curbed your insolent tongue when addressing your betters.' Curiously the rodent Howe had very sharp front teeth, which scraped against his thin bottom lip when annoyed. How very entertaining!

'Do you think so?' Zevran continued his casual circuit around the room. 'Thank you, I shall remember this advice. Certainly when I find such a man that is my better I shall be sure to be properly respectful. Have no doubt.'

Briefly Zevran wondered if this Rendon Howe might try and kill him. He had already spied a number of concealed weapons on the man's nasty little person. He also strongly suspected that this Ferelden lordling would be well versed in the roguish arts of dirty fighting. The prospect of a rousing battle, and the amusing irony of slaying one's potential employer before dancing off to find his punishment in death against a mark he could no longer get paid to kill, did appeal somewhat to the Crow. Alas, however, as much as he might seek his own death he was not about to jeopardise his reputation by killing a client – or provoking one to try and kill him. Dying in battle against fabled Grey Wardens in a far distant land was far more gratifying to Zevran's (dubious) sense of self-worth than meaninglessly throwing himself at the first person he could find willing to kill him, after all.

'My friend,' Zevran spoke expansively as he turned around to face the Arl fully, 'We have perhaps gotten off on the wrong foot, as I believe you Fereldens like to say?' He paused but all the Arl did was watch him while saying nothing; Zevran suspected the man was not one of life's great conversationalists. Nevertheless he saw some of the murderous tension leave Howe's body and that was all the encouragement Zevran needed. He filled the room with his words once more. 'We do not need to be cordial, no? All that needs to happen is for you to tell me where these Wardens are whom you wish killing and for me to go and do the killing, yes?'

'As you say elf,' Howe finally agreed. 'But be assured your disrespect has been noted. I shall be informing your crow masters of this slight against my person after the contract has been completed.'

Zevran kept his expression mild and did not laugh aloud. It was almost a shame that he would almost certainly perish in the attempt to fulfil the contract, thus robbing this human vermin of his opportunity to complain to the Crows over his customer service. Zevran would have liked to see the look on Howe's face when the Crows split his tongue in twain mid-complaint. The Arl glared at him. Zevran smirked back. Somewhere else in the keep a cold wind whistled through the halls and played at the edges of aging tapestries. Zevran counted down the seconds in his head; ever patient.

******

Sodding nug-humping bastard cowards – the lot of them! Why he oughta storm the deshir chambers right now and bang some heads together until those damn fools saw sense. Prince Triam was dead, Endrin was about to croak, and Bhelen was as slick as nug-shit and just as foul. Orzammar needed her Paragon back. They needed Branka - _he_ needed Branka.

Paralytic in the corner of Tapsters Oghren made a ham-fisted grab for his tankard only to find he'd fallen over on top of it and the damn thing was now indented flat on one side in the shape of his own arse. Sod it. There was a spill of ale spreading out across the taverns floor from the ruined tankard (or at least he hoped it was ale). Dignity lost when his wife buggered off and left him for a sodding woman Oghren rolled over onto his belly like a landed fish and did his best to lick up the spilled beer from the floor; the taste was actually enhanced by the filthy stone.

While he was sprawled on the floor some sodding nug-scrotum of a merchant caste stepped on his back and kicked him in the head as he passed. Just before the broken sword of a once warrior caste spiralled into unconsciousness he managed to choke out one word:

'Branka……'

Sometimes despair tasted of blood, bile and spilt ale.

*******

Finally Howe broke, 'Come with me elf; I will take you to the Regent.'

'Marvellous,' falling into a lavish, sweeping bow, Zevran stepped back to allow Howe to precede him out of the door, amused that the man could be either so arrogant or so stupid as to give a Crow his back. 'I am your attentive servant.'

As he followed Howe along an extensive (and somewhat unnecessary) detour through the man's large network of basement torture chambers (and observed that his rack could do with some much needed maintenance) before leaving the keep and heading for the palace Zevran hummed a jaunty and almost inaudible tune under his breath. He was off to see the Regent, the wonderful Regent of Ferelden; how grand! Biting back a laugh that had more of dust dry despair in it than carefree mirth Zevran could not help but ponder how strange it was that suicide could be so much fun.

(Ah dear Rinna – he would be joining her beyond the Fade soon enough).


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter Seventeen: Needs and Demands**

'My lady thank you,' The shemlen Knight Ser Perth bowed deeply. 'I do not know what you said to Sister Hannah, but I do know my men and I are in your debt.' The young man stood straight once more, unfolding his arms from the tradition bow. 'It will be an honour to fight alongside you, my lady warden.'

Mahahlia studied the man curiously, weighing the sincerity of his words. She frowned. He seemed sincere and there did not appear to be a trace of the usual scorn shemlens poured upon the flat-earned and servile elves whom chose to pander to the weakness of shemlen rather than living as the Dalish. After a moment, despite the strangeness, she nodded to him accepting his gratitude.

'Is there anything else you need?'

They had discovered the village of Redcliffe under siege; a town tight in the grips of panic and fear. Agreeing to help defend the town was only right. Shemlen or not Mahahlia would not stand by and allow a massacre to take place when she might be able to stop it. At least she wouldn't now, after months of travel in Ferelden. She may not like shemlen much, but she could no longer simply dismiss their lives as less than her own. Regardless of any moral considerations there was also the salient fact that the men of this village, should they live, would also form the infantry of Arl Eamon's much needed army. Practicality therefore, as well as honour, demanded Mahahlia do what she could to safeguard this village.

Nevertheless after hours of running errands for these sheep-like shemlen Mahahlia was growing tired and tetchy. Had it not been for Ser Perth's dignity and courtesy she would not have given him opportunity to ask her for another service; especially if it involved speaking with the vile shemlen sister Hannah again. What good was a holy woman who would not give succour to her faithful? Mahahlia had been tempted to offer the woman up as a sacrifice to the night fiends besieging the village, had she not relented to part with the tokens of faith Ser Perth asked for.

'No my lady,' the knight answered her question breaking into her dark thoughts. He smiled. 'You have done enough, I think. My men and I are ready for the night and all it brings.'

Mahahlia nodded to him again, grateful that this shemlen's needs and demands were not as limitless as the rest of his brethren. She trudged tiredly down the dusty winding slope of the cliff towards the town. The thunk-thunk of arrows hitting targets punctuated the buzzing quiet of the little village and its pall of fear. Fatigued, hot and thirsty Mahahlia wanted nothing more than to sit for a moment, but the clanking of running armoured footsteps assured her this would not be an option.

'You threatened Sister Hannah!' Alistair, red faced and aggrieved, bounded over to her. 'I can't believe you threatened a Chantry sister. No wait, yes I can.' He crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at her scowling. 'Couldn't you at least save the threats for that dwarf Murdock told us about?' Without taking a breath he continued with his demands. 'By the way we still need to find Kaitlyn's brother and sort out that dwarf.'

Mahahlia said nothing. The taste of dust clogged the back of her throat and her eyes ached with frustration. The day was witheringly hot and she had been running around after helpless shems since they arrived. Her fists curled at her sides almost unconsciously. 'Why have you not looked for the boy?' She asked in a flat and leaden tone. 'It was you who stopped to speak with the fool girl in the Chantry.'

'Well, I –' the shemlen shuffled his feet nervously and looked down at the ground. 'I was going to look but then I started talking to Bann Teagan and well – ah,' his words stuttered off into an irritating half giggle. 'You know how it is, time really flies when you're catching up with family, doesn't it?'

Mahahlia just stared at him, a very long and very level stare. The stare was the optic equivalent of the calm before the arrival of a devastating storm which lays waste to all in its path. 'I wouldn't know shemlen; it is unlikely I will ever see my clan again.' _Thanks to your precious Duncan and his damnable Blight. _

Alistair paled slightly and quick stepped away from her. 'I - er – I'll go and see if I can find Kaitlyn's brother then.'

'Yes shemlen,' Mahahlia agreed through her teeth. 'You had better.'

*******

'I can't believe you threatened to eviscerate that dwarf!' Alistair whined as Mahahlia dropped heavily onto a packing crate left abandoned along the rickety wooden pier. The sun was dropping low on the horizon and soon it would be evening. Everything that could be done to prepare the village for the coming onslaught had been done. There was nothing left to do but wait and fight. Yet the damned shemlen still nagged her. Like a biting insect buzzing in her ear, his complaints rankled at her, playing on already frayed nerves.

'You told me to threaten him.' Mahahlia pointed out tiredly.

'Well yes but,' Alistair shifted in his armour, squeaking again. 'I was joking. I didn't mean you had to literally beat him into submission.'

'I didn't.' Mahahlia shaded her eyes with one hand and looked up at the hulking shadow of Redcliffe castle perched on the cliff. She was caked in dust and dried sweat and her leathers were chafing. Her legs ached from climbing up and down the cliff to the windmill and back down to the village over and over and her feet were blistered bloody. 'I _persuaded_ him to fight for the village by informing him of all the bad things that could happen if he did not.' Mahahlia looked up at the shemlen beside her. 'This is how negotiation works, is it not shemlen?'

'Negotiating doesn't usually involve threatening to slice people open and fill thir innards with saw dust and rat droppings.' Alistair winced, 'Maybe Leliana should have spoken to him; she managed to get through to Owen the smithy.'

'Or maybe _you_ should have said something?' Mahahlia argued back. 'This village was your home, shemlen, yet you have done little of use all day!'

Alistair stared at him, 'Hey that's not fair! I found Kaitlyn's brother!'

'In a wardrobe in his own house,' Mahahlia pointed out dryly.

'Yes well, I still found him!' Alistair perched awkwardly on the edge of the wooden crate beside her. 'Look I'm sorry. I don't mean to seem ungrateful. It's just that I was only ten when I left and, you know, I'm not good at talking to people.' He shrugged. 'It's the whole leading thing.' He flicked his eyes to her hopefully. 'We've been over this haven't we? I'm more of a follower than a motivational leader sort.'

Without looking at the shemlen Mahahlia rose and started walking down the boardwalk away from him. She did not say a word; her hands clenched tightly at her sides.

'Where are you going?' The shemlen demanded sounding aggrieved once more. Mahahlia said nothing and swiftly ducked around the ramshackle side of a wooden hut weaving her way to a quiet corner where she hoped and prayed the shemlen would not be able to find her. She knew that if Alistair approached her again before this night was done, she would kill him - and what is more, she would thoroughly enjoy doing so.

******

Dawn rose and painted a sky already sooty with smoke and ash in shades of gold and blue. Mahahlia ached all over; patina over patina of dried sweat, blood, and other viscera covered every inch of exposed flesh on her body. She bled from multiple shallow cuts and her muscles quivered with spent adrenaline and fatigue; the only thing keeping her standing as she watched the villagers cart off the desiccated corpses of fallen fiends away for burning was sheer stubbornness. She was so tired her teeth throbbed.

Soft steps alerted her to a familiar approach but Mahahlia was too tired to turn to face Leliana as the woman came to her side. 'My dear you are so pale. Here come and sit. There is food and drink in the Chantry for the soldiers; I will fetch you some.'

Despite being filthy, bloody and sweaty herself, Leliana gently guided Mahahlia over to an overturned archery butt in the central square of the village standing in the shadow of the stone Chantry. Mahahlia was too tired to react as Leliana brushed a hand over her brow, whispered one of her Maker blessings and whisked off to find food with one last lingering caress to her shoulder.

A moment later Lethallin bounded over and began to lick some of the excess blood and filth off her hands, legs, and arms and still Mahahlia could only sit and shiver in the dawning chill. In a darkened corner of the village square as far from the Chantry as she could get without leaving the sight of her compatriots Morrigan sat on a hay bale looking equally exhausted. The battle for Redcliffe had been gruelling and the mage was pale from over-exertion. When she realised Mahahlia was watching her, the witch arched a brow coolly in question. Mahahlia returned the look in kind and received the faintest of smirks from the haughty woman in response.

After that time passed in a dull blur and Mahahlia only realised she had dozed off when some instinct of survival roused her with the warning that someone stood over her. Mahahlia opened her eyes to find Alistair standing before her. He looked less dishevelled than she thought he had any right too.

'You need to get up,' he told her. 'There's going to be a ceremony for the dead and then we need to talk to Bann Teagan. We need to get into the castle and find Arl Eamon.'

Mahahlia was for a moment too fogged in sleep and exhaustion to truly countenance what he was saying. She just stared. Alistair frowned at her. 'Come on. What are you waiting for we need……'

'Alistair!' Leliana appeared, stepping around the shemlen with a steaming bowl of porridge in her hands. 'Mahahlia has not yet eaten, nor washed since the battle. Would you have her lay siege to the castle on a empty stomach and no sleep?' Handing over the bowl Leliana smiled. 'Here we are my friend. It has nutmeg and raisins.'

Alistair was flushing an unappealing purplish colour when Mahahlia turned back to him. 'I……er…sorry; I'll, um, I'll just go and er, let you eat.' He scampered off in a hurry. Mahahlia watched him go, eyes narrowed. When Leliana settled herself down on the ground beside her and began trying to gently brush the filth and tangles from her hair, humming softly under her breath, Mahahlia chose not to dissuade her.

At least one shemlen had some manners around here.

********

'I swear to you – I did not summon the demon!' The shemlen mage in the dungeon cell stank of old sweat and fouler things. He was bloody and wore the marks of recent mistreatment all over him. His dark hair hung greasily around his face, which was long and sallow. He clutched at the bars of his basement cage with bloodied hands. Two of his fingers on the left hand had been viciously broken. Mahahlia stepped back from the cage and considered the man thoughtfully.

'If you are a mage why not escape on your own?' Glancing back at the silent and disdainful Morrigan briefly Mahahlia frowned back at the other mage. 'Can you not change form and slip through the bars?'

'What? No, of course not,' the mage shook his head. 'That sort of magic is as much a myth as Flemeth: witch of the wilds.' Behind her back Morrigan scoffed scornfully and Mahahlia almost smiled. Ignoring or simply oblivious to this the captured mage beseeched her again. 'I admit I poisoned Arl Eamon. Teryn Loghain told me he was a danger to Ferelden. I thought I was doing something good! Please you have to believe me!'

'Doing something good?' Alistair's armour squeaked together as he shifted, unable to keep still in his ire. 'Arl Eamon is the best of men.' He snapped before addressing Mahahlia. 'This man is an apostate and a blood mage. You can't let him go.'

'No,' Mahahlia agreed meditatively looking at the sturdy lock on the cage door. 'I can't.' She turned to Leliana. 'Is this a lock you can pick? Like you picked the lock on the blacksmith's door?'

Leliana hesitated. Although Mahahlia happened to think the picking of locks was a fine skill to have, much like the ability to make and disarm traps, Leliana had seemed reluctant at first to demonstrate her skill. Apparently it was not proper for a Chantry lay sister to be able to break the locks on most treasury doors. Or at least that was the impression Mahahlia had gained from the look on Alistair's face when Leliana had first broken into the drunkard's domain.

'My friend,' Leliana began carefully glancing from her to Alistair. 'Are you sure we should let him go?'

'No.' Mahahlia conceded. She turned back to the desperate mage. 'What would you do if I let you out?' She asked him ignoring Alistair's outraged sputter beside her.

'I have to make things right!' The mage moaned in a rather unpleasant and nasal fashion. 'I didn't summon this demon, I swear, but perhaps I can find someway of banishing it. I have to try at least.'

'And if you do, and the Arl recovers from your poison, what will you do then?' Mahahlia asked curiously.

Demons, blood magic, apostates and the Chantry; these were all Shemlen nonsense as far as she was concerned. Magic amid the Dalish was a tool. Often the Keeper had magic at his or her disposal and it was used for the good of the clan. The Elvhenen did not complicate things unnecessarily by branding some magic good and some magic bad. Magic itself was a neutral force; it was how one used it that mattered. Mahahlia narrowed her eyes at the shemlen mage before her once more cataloguing each stain of bruises, each infected sore, and weeping contusion on his body. It was also true that the Dalish did not keep prisoners for torture; enemies were simply killed, cleanly and without compunction. Torture was a peculiarly shemlen preoccupation and one not to her tastes. To kill was a matter of individual conscience; to cause lingering death was simply malice and cruelty.

The mage sagged against the bars of his cage and answered her question in resigned fashion. 'I suppose I'll be executed, or taken back to the tower and made Tranquil.'

'Tranquil?' Mahahlia glanced back to Morrigan who merely raised one shoulder in an elegantly dismissive shrug; clearly there were some matters of magic the witch did not know.

'Yes,' the imprisoned mage said. 'It's something done to mages in the Tower who are suspected of being maleficar, or who are expected to fail their Harrowing. A Tranquil's connection to the Fade is severed along with their emotions. The Tranquil are just living shells; completely soulless.'

Mahahlia took another step back from the cage, face twisting in disgust. 'The things you shems do to one another.' She turned to Leliana. 'Open the cage.'

'What, you can't!' Alistair stepped between Leliana and the door, glaring down at Mahahlia. 'He's a maleficar and a poisoner, you can't just -' Alistair's words dried up on his tongue as Mahahlia's small skinning knife appeared in her hand as if by magic and found a comfortable nook to rest upon just under his chin. She stared up at the shemlen coolly.

'If you would kill him once the cage is open, shemlen,' she told him calmly, 'Then so be it, but I will not be party to this. Death is death; this is just depravity.'

Alistair glared. 'Oh so now you're being merciful?' He demanded hotly, 'To a maleficar and a blood mage of all people. What about that Qunari in the cage back in Lothering; you left him for the Darkspawn.'

Mahahlia blinked and lowered her blade. She had almost forgotten that. Lothering seemed a very long time ago and a great deal had happened since then. She tucked her knife away quietly, thinking.

'You are right shemlen.' She admitted softly. 'I did, and now I know that was wrong.' Sliding around the almost-templar she started walking towards the stairs up from the basement and into the Redcliffe keep proper. 'I thank you for reminding me of my own failings.'

'And that's it?' Alistair demanded. 'You're just going to leave the maleficar now; I thought you wanted to let him go?' Mahahlia turned back around resentment of the shemlen's incessant demands on her finally bubbling over.

'What do you expect of me, shemlen?' She snarled stalking close again. Angrily she shoved him against the bars of the mage's cage. His armour scraped with a painful squealing against the rusty bars. Alistair released a huff of surprise as he was knocked off balance by the small and bony elf. 'You condemn me for killing; you condemn me when I would be merciful! If you would lead then lead, but I will not be judged by you.'

'I -,' Alistair flushed eyes darting to Leliana who stood close and watched keenly, and then to Morrigan who watched this latest squabble between the two wardens with open amusement. Lethallin stood beside the witch and lifted his top lip away from a row of sharp teeth in a lazy warning. Alistair did his best to rally though he was running low on natural allies.

'Alright,' He sighed relenting. 'It's just that, well, this time it's a maleficar and a blood mage and a poisoner, and letting him go could be really bad.'

'For whom?' Mahahlia demanded. 'Is he darkspawn; is he an archdemon? Is it the duty of wardens to summarily execute mages we do not like?'

'Er…no,' Alistair admitted. 'But…'

Mahahlia released him suddenly turning away in contempt. 'I have already told you, shemlen. If you would kill him then kill him. I do not care.' She started walking again.

'But know this shemlen: I will not be the instrument of your moral outrage. Do your own dirty work and speak no more of it to me.'

*******

'Mother what is it? Why is it staring at me?'

The main audience chamber of Redcliffe castle was cold; the cold had an unnatural, clammy feel to it. It was both enervating and icy. The guttering torches in the wall brackets cast a paltry, inconsistent light across the chamber, failing to do more than give strength to the shadows. The stench of decay and death clung to the scene like a physical presence. The child standing on the raised dais beside his mother, the shemlen Isolde, and the crouching Bann Teagan stared at Mahahlia as fixedly as she stared back at him.

Isolde rang her pale hands, red-rimmed eyes tight with guilt. 'This is an elf, Connor. You know elves; we have them at the castle.'

Mahahlia had already narrowed her eyes at this slightly dismissive description all the same the boy-fiend's next words seared through her like ice melt through her veins.

'Oh yes!' The strangely echoing voice cooed and the child capered awkwardly. 'I cut off their silly pointy ears and fed them to the dogs!'

Her skinning knife was drawn from her belt pouch before she truly had time to think. Mahahlia had the knife ready for a quick throw and arm reared back when Alistair grabbed her wrist.

'Wait - please,' He insisted eyes rooted to the boy Connor as the diminutive fiend rocked back laughing in a hideous and unnatural manner. Isolde cried out and tried to throw herself before her child, only to be roughly kicked in the back by the boy. Bann Teagan continued to rock back and forth, legs drawn up to his chest, sucking his thumb like a child. Something was very odd here. Mahahlia did not know much of how shemlen liked to behave but she suspected walking corpses, blood, death, and madness were unlikely to be favoured pastimes of shemlen anymore than they were for the Dalish. Mahahlia sighed. Everything would be so much simpler had she simply run from Duncan when she had the chance.

'Let go of me, shemlen.' Shooting Alistair a dark look she broke his grip on her wrist but did replace her knife back in the soft leather pouch.

Alistair gave her a wide eyed look. 'Just try not to kill anyone unless you absolutely have to, please?'

'I beg of you,' Isolde beseeched them. 'Connor is not responsible for this. It is the demon.'

Mahahlia narrowed her eyes, 'Did you tell that to the elves he mutilated?'

The Arlessa looked at her blankly for a moment. Her expression clearly indicating that it would not have occurred to her to speak with elves for any reason except to give an order. Before the woman could enunciate this and give Mahahlia the excuse she was looking for to engage in much desired bloodshed however, the demon-boy stirred.

'This is dull; I am bored.' He pointed a small finger straight at Mahahlia 'She has ruined all my fun. She saved that stupid village.' Pale eyes grown brilliant with a sickly luminance not of this realm fixed intently upon Mahahlia, 'Now you are going to play with me!'

Things happened fast after that; Teagan exploded into action, tackling Mahahlia from the side before she could lunge at the boy creature and simultaneously ensorcelled soldiers poured in from the three open doorways of the chamber.

'Maker preserve us!' Leliana exclaimed which had become the unofficial rallying call of their odd party. Lethallin howled and launched himself into a knot of soldiers to the right as Alistair loosed a bellow surprisingly similar to a howl and charged an opposing trio of men from the left. Mahahlia had her hands full dealing with Teagan, whom seemed less interested in killing her and more interested in pulling her hair.

'Nya, nya, nya nya,' he stuck his tongue out and yanked on one of the braids Leliana had woven her hair into that morning after she had washed. Mahahlia kicked him in the shin hard and jammed an elbow into his neck. The magically addled Bann yelped in strangled fashion and ran away into the corner where Isolde cowered in fear. Mahahlia spun around, drew her blades and made a two-handed sweep to drive both blades into the kidneys of an unfortunate soldier that had managed to crowd Morrigan into a corner. The soldier went down silently and Mahahlia wrenched her blades out of his body.

'Well,' Morrigan blew a stray strand of hair from her brow and assessed the collection of bodies littering the chamber floor. 'This has been a pointless exercise. The demon has escaped.'

'Should we give chase and kill it?' Mahahlia asked the mage, whom would likely know best what to do with these demons.

'No, no!' Alistair ambled over. 'We can't do that. Connor is Arl Eamon's son.'

'He is demon possessed.' Leliana interposed voice soft and troubled. 'The Chantry does not suffer a demon to live.'

'Tis interesting Alistair,' Morrigan purred. 'What would your Templar training tell you to do; or does a noble birth exempt one from being an abomination and thus mandated to die at the hands of the Templars?'

Mahahlia closed her eyes, rubbing at her brow and trying to ignore her bickering companions. She thought about the shambling corpses she had hacked down in endless waves the night before. She remembered the men of the village she had been forced to threaten and cajole into action in defence of their own homestead (although it was fair to say Mahahlia had threatened and Leliana had cajoled, the redheaded woman had a far sweeter tongue in her head than Mahahlia could ever boast). Curling her fists Mahahlia's eyes popped open. Her limit had been reached; this shemlen nonsense had gone on long enough!

'Someone needs to pay for this.' She announced effectively cutting off the argument bubbling away between the three other verbal members of her travelling party. Lethallin bumped his head against her hand with a sympathetic whine and licked a spatter of blood from her leg. She scratched his head and narrowed her eyes, fixing first Alistair, and then Morrigan with a dark and piercing look.

'I am tired. I am hungry. I do not like this shem castle.' She told them levelly a whisper away from screaming in her mounting rage. 'One of you had better have a solution to this mess or by the Old Ones I shall let the demon have you all!' Her dire threat echoed in the large chamber so that Isolde and the now lucid Teagan both turned to stare at her.

It was at that moment that the blood mage appeared – and things went down hill from there.


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter Eighteen: The Murder of Crows**

Dawn's dying wisps clung to the hazy light of morning like a gossamer shroud as the party broke camp. They had travelled the road up to Lake Calahad well into the night after leaving Redcliffe castle in search of mages to enter the Fade and free Connor from the demon and even knowing they were doing the right thing. (The only thing to save everyone in the Guerrin family) Alistair was still torn with worry and anxious to get moving as swiftly as possible this day. There was no real knowing how Redcliffe would fare in their absence, or whether the demon possessing Connor would gain the strength to lay siege to the village again. The thought that people might start dying again while they were travelling to the Circle weighed heavily on Alistair; thought not as much as the thought of having to kill Connor or Isolde. Still despite his fears for his childhood home and the family that had never been his, Alistair's primary worry was for Mahahlia. She had been listless and disturbingly quiet since before the battle to save Redcliffe village.

Alistair was not quite so foolish that he didn't realise that Mahahlia was annoyed with him; he probably should have done more to help prepare the village of Redcliffe for the night siege. In fact, he knew deep down, that he should have taken the lead in all those efforts instead of leaving it to Mahahlia, a Dalish elf who had probably never spent so much time in a human town before. Still Alistair wasn't sure what he should do about that now. Anytime he tried to approach the elf she glared at him like she was imagining what he'd look like with all his skin flayed off.

Marching along the long road back to the small hamlet of Kinlock Hold and the Circle tower, following the curvature of Lake Calahad close enough that the damp from the river fog seeped into their bones, Alistair kept a covert eye on his fellow Grey Warden. Her footfalls seemed heavy and graceless, which was completely unlike her. She walked with her head down, barely aware of her own surroundings. Not good; that was not good at all.

'Alistair?' Startled out of his pensive reverie Alistair was surprised to see that Leliana had come up beside him.

'Wow,' he eyed the Chantry sister warily. 'Can't you make noise when you walk or something?'

Leliana only managed a faint smile in response to this, 'Minstrels must stay light on our feet, yes?' Her bright eyes fixed on Mahahlia's slumped form a few steps ahead and the smile slid away.

'I'm worried too.' Alistair admitted without Leliana having to say a word. 'Mahahlia isn't usually this quiet.'

'She is tired.' The Orlesian said firmly. 'This is very hard on her, Alistair. She is far from her home.' The woman gave him a look, 'We must all help to lessen the burden on her, yes? She is our leader, but a leader is cannot do everything on her own.'

Alistair winced, 'I know,' he shifted uncomfortably in his armour. 'It's just that, despite you know, _everything_, she's actually pretty good at leading. People listen to what she says, even when she's not threatening to chop their arms and legs off.'

Leliana smiled, an odd shine in her eyes, 'Yes. She is like a hero from the old songs. She is a leader of men. Still,' the slightly strange Chantry sister grew pensive again. 'We are all her friends, yes? We must make things easier for her when we can.' The redhead woman sighed. 'I think she is lonely. She is far from her own kind and the human ways of Ferelden, I think, are very strange to her.'

Alistair was about to say something, anything at all, in response but then the sound of a woman shrieking shattered the grey and dull morning. Instantly weapons were drawn and staves poised as their party of five fell into immediate battle readiness. A young woman in homespun clothes hurtled towards them, stumbling to her knees as she tripped over her feet, still looking behind her shoulder in abject terror.

'Bandits!' She reached to grasp at one of Alistair's greaves, 'Ahead – destroyed our wagons; killed our guard. Maker please, I beg you, help us!' As if to further illustrate the point the acrid stench of smoke began to taint the air. The woman on the ground was bloody and covered in dust; her face blushing with fresh bruises and her clothes torn.

Alistair narrowed his eyes, looking to the point further up the empty road where the smoke rose from in lazy lines. 'Stay here.' He ordered the frightened woman as he buckled on his shield to his left arm and took up his sword in his right hand. He started running along the path, Lethallin bounding up to keep pace easily beside him. He could hear the others at his heels, Leliana and Morrigan maintaining their rearguard. Moments later Mahahlia was on his other side, swift footed and able even though her strides were shorter as they charged forward.

Therefore when they ran into the wide spot in the road where an overturned wagon stood burning, and the blood of the oxen that had pulled the wagon was already trying in the morning sunlight, Alistair, Lethallin, and Mahahlia were a good few yards ahead of the other two members of the party. Alistair had a scant second to realise something was very wrong before the massive bulk of a felled tree crashed down from the cliff rise above them, on a collision course with their heads.

Alistair, Lethallin and Mahahlia dived one way, Leliana (the closest of the other two) leapt back the other way. They all hit the ground as from all sides along the rocky ridge above them and the tree line at the road side, a wall of arrows rained down upon them. Alistair spat road dust out of his mouth and rolled to his feet. He swiftly raised his shield and felt the impact run up his arm as a trio of arrows bit into the metal.

'Maker's breath!' These bandits were good; they'd set an ambush! Running forward with his shield before him Alistair ploughed straight into one of the bandits as he emerged from cover behind a tree and launched a spiralling two bladed attack straight at Mahahlia, who was still picking herself up from underneath some of the heavier tree branches.

Smashing into the attacker with shield and brute strength Alistair sent the man bouncing across the ground, face a mass of blood. He whipped up his shield again and deflected another barrage of arrows. Who were these brigands? They were better than the usual roadside bandits they had encountered once or twice in the last few months. Beyond the bulk of the fallen tree Alistair could hear the crackle and pop of smells searing the air and Leliana's unique battle cry mingling with Lethallin's howls.

Another duel wielding man leapt off the ridge above them then, Alistair dodged out of the way, putting himself between the new assailant and Mahahlia who had yet to stand. He stopped the other man from flanking him and used his shield to knock him senseless as soon as the man closed in on him. Deflecting yet more arrows (though there seemed to be fewer now – the others must have been doing some good beyond the tree) Alistair started forward to help Mahahlia. There was no warning for what happened next.

One moment he was moving to lift his fellow Grey Warden out from under the fallen tree branches, the next he was crumpled on the ground by the roadside, grasping at the flaring red and blinding pain emanating from one leg. Astonished Alistair realised he'd been hamstrung from behind by an assailant he hadn't even realised was there.

Sensing movement though he still couldn't _see_ anyone Alistair whipped his shield up and around to protect his head, holding it facing the direction he expected the next blow to come from. Unfortunately he was then promptly kicked in the back of the head from the _other_ direction, his assailant somehow having managed to sneak around him once again. Thus it was that Alistair slammed face first into the dust for a second time – and this time he did not get back up.

******

Mahahlia had seen Alistair fall. It had all happened so fast! First the ambush, which had left the three frontline fighters cut off from their mage and archer support. Second had been the weight of the felled tree's stout branch batting her to the hard ground and knocking the wind out of her. Still struggling to extricate herself from under the tree Mahahlia had been helpless to do more than watch as one of their attackers leapt at her, brandishing twin blades longer than her forearm in a lethal blur. Alistair's timely intervention had undoubtedly saved her life (a thought to chew on later - assuming there was one) but now it seemed he needed her aid.

Finally free of the tree Mahahlia leapt to her feet and charged the yellow haired man, the one who had appeared from nowhere to cripple and then kick Alistair unconscious; it was only when the man pivoted smoothly to parry her rather clumsy vertical stab with dar'misu that Mahahlia realised to her shock that the attacker was of the elvhenen. She hesitated; shocked. In all this time the only elves she had seen living amid the shem had been pathetic, weak, and crawling creatures, barely deserving to be called elves. Other than the Dalish of Zathrian's clan she had yet to see another elf bearing arms until this man. The incongruity of the sight shocked her into a devastating moment of inattentiveness. She stared into a pair of elven eyes as dark and empty as an abyss.

'Grey warden, you die here.'

Shock turned to heart hammering fear as Mahahlia realised that this man knew what she was, and while still frozen by the surprise of it all, the elf seized the opportunity and kicked her in the knee cap. Simultaneously, as she began to crumple to the ground, he caught one of her wrists in a vicious twist that caused her fingers to grow instantly limp around her own weapon so that it fell from her hand. Using her lack of balance and the grip he had on her arm, the man spun her around, so her back was to his chest, wrapped one sinewy forearm tight under her chin and hissed in her ear in a strange and oddly sinister tenor.

'Tsk, such poor blade control; so sloppy; it is such a shame.' The arm left her throat but before she could react the elf withdrew like a shadow. Mahahlia whipped around, panting and clutching her still remaining dar'misu. She could not see hide nor hair of the elf, but she did see Alistair, unable to stand, struggling to hold his shield before him as the very same shem woman who had accosted them earlier, screaming of bandits, threw bolts of lightning straight at his head.

'Morrigan! Leliana!' Mahahlia ran in a crouch along the bluff in a wide arc around the aggressor mage. She could hear Lethallin snarling and barking a little ways off. Yet where were the others? Alistair was clearly incapacitated and unable to defend himself but why had the others not come to their aid; the thought that they had been felled already simply served to spur Mahahlia on faster than before.

As she mounted the small ridge behind the enemy mage Mahahlia soon discovered that Morrigan and Leliana, while both still fighting, had their hands full dealing with a small battalion of archers and melee fighters. Morrigan had taken her giant spider form and was busy half devouring one such rogue while Leliana managed to loose a barrage of covering fire against any archers who might have tried to pick off Mahahlia as she lunged for the inattentive deceiver who had led them into this ambush. Alistair was still just about staying upright, but he still couldn't stand.

The enemy mage realised her vulnerability too late, spinning around with arms raised for casting only for her hands to drop and her mouth to fall open in shock as Mahahlia buried her dar'misu deep into the woman's gut. She dragged the blade upward until she hit bone and then twisted savagely left and right. The woman was dead before she fell down over the edge of the bluff. Mahahlia did not bother to watch her hit the bottom and instead turned her sights outward.

Recovering from the initial surprise of the attack she was pleased to see that her compatriots were beginning to gain the upper hand. Morrigan had shifted into her swarm form and had caught a knot of archers in a veritable wall of biting, stinging, buzzing death. While the men cried out and tried to run or fight off the swarm, Leliana picked them off with one keen arrow after another. When one straggler bolted for higher ground away from the road, Lethallin launched himself at the man's back, jaws snapping his neck before they hit the ground. Blood arced in the air as the mabari worried at his prey, tearing open weak flesh.

Mahahlia had a moment more to feel triumphant and bask in reflective pride, before the fight found her again. The hair on the nape of her neck lifted all aquiver a second later and shiver ran down her spine. Mahahlia was spinning on her feet, one surviving blade sweeping in a wide arc towards the male elf's throat in the next instance.

'Pity,' the elf laughed jumping backward away from the lunge. 'It would appear that one cannot buy good help in this miserable country.' Mahahlia tried a shot to his side where leather armour was weaker. The elf sidestepped easily, not even losing the train of his conversation. 'I had hoped my new friends would kill at least one of you.'

The elf feinted rather obviously with the dagger in his left hand, but Mahahlia recognised the move and stepped inward instead of outward and very nearly managed to get a hit in of her own before he danced away again. Native anger getting the better of what limited combat tactics she owned, Mahahlia drove at her assailant in a fury; undisciplined but magnificent in the pure rage that animated her every thrust, sweep, kick, and stab.

'Marvellous; such passion! I could watch you exert yourself all day.' The elf laughed; a sound at once joyous and harsh. He was bleeding from one or two shallow nicks, but remained infuriatingly alive despite Mahahlia's increasingly frantic efforts. 'Alas it would appear I must do this the hard way.'

Distantly Mahahlia realised that the elf was leading her away from the relative safety of the road and her other companions, towards a copse of trees deep in shadow. When she tried to turn away, to retreat and make him force the attack so she could lure him to her compatriots, the elf managed somehow to outmanoeuvre her once again, sliding past her guard so he stood between her and the road. A second later Mahahlia was stumbling backwards into the trees to avoid the spearing thrust of a shortsword aimed at her throat.

Screaming her rage she threw what little finesse and caution she possessed to the wind and charged the elf as if he was an ogre, her one dagger held above her head ready to plunge downward with all her might. The abyssal eyed elf laughed again like shattering glass and did not move until she had committed herself to the downward sweep, then he twisted at the last instant (so much so that her dar'misu grazed his ribs on the pass), grabbed the back of her head in one hand and her wrist in the other and used her own momentum to force her too far forward and off balance. She hit the ground, dagger striking into hard packed ground and near breaking her wrist with the impact as the weight of the rest of her body fell upon her hand. Mahahlia screamed again – a short, sharp sound.

It was with her heart in her throat that she realised that this was the moment of her death.

Except it wasn't; the fatal stab to the back did not come, nor the quick blade across the throat from behind. Instead Mahahlia swiftly rolled over kicking to her feet and staggered upright. She stared at the strange elf who had not taken his opportunity to kill her. Standing a few feet away he merely smiled leeringly at her, nodded shallowly in a mocking bow and gestured with his drawn swords.

'Your move senora.'

Mahahlia did not hesitate. She could not fathom why the man would not press his attack and she did not intend to waste any more time wondering. He was a mad fool and she did not intend to give him any other opportunity to kill her. Once more throwing herself forward, Mahahlia skirted nimbly to the right at the last second, catching the man by surprise. He only just managed to turn so that a strike to the kidney caught him in the hip instead; she felt it when her blade hit the bone. She heard him hiss in pain, those dead eyes narrowing to angry slits.

'You learn quickly. That is good.' He murmured as they parted and circled each other. Mahahlia frowned. She did not understand why this man kept talking in the middle of a fight to the death, but more than that she wondered at _what_ he said. If he had come to kill her shouldn't he be _killing _her and not complimenting her?

Once again her confusion cost Mahahlia dearly, as suddenly, the man was in motion. Taking a leaf from her own unorthodox technique he charged her head on, catching her with his shoulder and slamming her backwards into the trunk of a tree. Mahahlia saw stars in daylight as once again all the breath whooshed from her lungs and the back of her skull bounced against hard bark. She tried to thrust the dar'misu pinned between his body and hers into his stomach, but he moved and brought his own hand down in a chopping motion against her shoulder in just such a way that all the muscles and tendons of her arm from shoulder to fingertip turned to water. The blade dropped uselessly to the scraggy grass at her feet.

'Ah and here we are.' The elf whispered in her ear and Mahahlia could barely hear him over the terrible thundering of her heart. 'Our dance is at its end, si?'

Sweat stung Mahahlia's eyes and she could barely see for the dancing spots of panic obscuring her vision. The strange elf's smell filled her nostrils and in a moment of extreme weakness Mahahlia closed her eyes, afraid to look the instant of her death in the eye. Then once again the nameless elf did something inexplicable. She felt him grab one of her hands and shove his own shortsword into her sweaty palm. Mahahlia's eyes popped open at once. The elf leaned in towards her and whispered something into her ear in a tongue she did not understand, except to catch one word:

'……Rinna.'

He sprang back from her then and let his own dagger fall from his hands, while Mahahlia watched, dumbfounded. The elf smirked humourlessly and lifted his arms loosely away from his body and out to the side. His pose seemed to invite a lunge straight for the vulnerable flesh of neck or stomach. Thus he stood there, open and waiting for the blow, empty eyes closed and face composed. Mahahlia tightened her grip on the unfamiliar sword he had pushed into her hand and pushed away from the tree. She was wary and did not trust this newest and most peculiar gambit.

'Who _are_ you?' She demanded trying to sound anything other than breathless and afraid.

The elf did not answer, just sighed and held his waiting pose. He had an air about him of one impatient for death. Mahahlia was completely stunned. She did not understand any of this! This made twice now that the elf had foresworn an open opportunity to kill her. She was about to speak again, to demand answers, when a large dark sharp exploded from the underbrush in the shadows under the trees. There was a snarl from nightmares, a flash of teeth, and before Mahahlia's eyes her mabari threw himself atop the inexplicable elf.

'Lethallin – No!'

Dog and strange elf skidded across the balding grass of the road side. Lethallin riding the elf in a blur of snarling ferocity; Mahahlia saw blood fly, heard bone break, but not once did the elf make a sound as her faithful hound shook him like a hare dangling from his monstrous jaws. Mahahlia was in motion before she had time to think.

'Lethallin let go! LET GO!' Wrapping her arms around the great hound's neck, feeling muscle hard as rock pulse beneath sweat slick velvet fur, she pulled the mabari off the limp body of the other elf. To her even greater astonishment he was still just barely conscious -and _smiling_!

'Ah of course,' lying on the ground, his side torn open by her mabari's claws, his right shoulder nothing more than a red ruin, his face covered in his own blood and liberally slimed in drool the insane elf still contrived to leer at her. 'There would have to be a dog.' The elf's chuckle was wet with blood gurgling up from his throat and his eyes, still dead as a starless night, slipped almost languidly closed as the man slumped into deep unconsciousness.

Mahahlia, arms wrapped around her still snarling hound in a strange parody of an embrace, could do nothing except kneel beside the fallen elf in stunned incomprehension. She was still sitting just so when the rest of her party found her.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter Nineteen: Poison, the chance of an orgy, and a Question**

Zevran Arainai returned to the realm of the conscious quite without warning. First there was pain, which at least had the benefit of being familiar and not unexpected, then came the realisation that pain was a rather prosaic indicator of continued existence. This was less expected……and very much not welcome.

Without opening his eyes or otherwise indicating his return to awareness Zevran began to catalogue what his other senses were telling him about his present situation. One, as previously noted, he was in pain; quite a lot actually. Two there was something rather large and fearsome sounding growling at him not a foot from his ear. Third he was upright; the numbing burn radiating from his right shoulder and running all the way down his flank suggested he was tied against something, arms pinned above his head. This was a particularly effective tactic as his right arm appeared to be broken and the current angle and elevation of both his limbs only served to emphasise the pain – quite an artful piece of sadism, indeed.

A few feet away, judging by the sound of things, his would-be targets had gathered to bicker among themselves most amusingly, with little else to do Zevran began eavesdropping shamelessly.

'Ow…ow! Why is my leg turning yellow?' A man's voice whined pitifully. Given that there was but one male amid the party Zevran assumed this must be the human grey warden: Alistair. Regent Loghain had been particularly interested in seeing this one dead. This made some sense if the rumours Zevran had heard were true. Royal bastards could prove greatly irritating to the average usurper.

'Alastair you must not move – here my dear, use this as a tourniquet. It should slow the blood flow and stop any more of the poison entering his bloodstream.' Another voice, female and Orlesian: the archer? Zevran had not gained much insight into the red-haired human woman travelling with the wardens. All he had been able to ascertain was that she appeared rather remarkably skilled with a bow, judging by the sheer number of his mercenaries she had dispatched in the battle.

'Tis an interesting compound; I do not recognise it. It shall be intriguing to watch the progression.' Ah yet another voice. Another woman, which was nice, Zevran thought that dying at the hands of a group of ravishingly beautiful, scantily clad women would be a fine way to go. He could but hope such a fate would be borne out.

'Am I going to die? I don't feel like I'm dying. My leg just feels sort of numb and tingling.'

'Tis a great shame that the same cannot be said for your tongue; would that this poison had robbed you of your voice and not your mobility.'

'Ha-ha; I can still move my arms you know, and lift a sword. Actually I think I could hop on one leg if it came to it.'

Zevran bit off a tired sigh before it could swoosh from his lips and give the game away. He was really beginning to regret using the Balla Root on the male warden. Zevran had already decided that the honour of killing him would befall the female warden before the skirmish had begun and under those circumstances the heavily armoured human had seemed a threat best removed swiftly. The Balla root's affect of temporary paralyse had seemed the most expedient toxin to use. Now he was beginning to wish he had used something a trifle more……lethal.

The other warden though……ah but she was a different story.

_An elf……and of the Dalish, unless I am mistaken; and _that_ is not likely. _Had Zevran possessed a heart it might very well have frozen solid in his chest when he had gained his first glimpse of the female warden along the long road of the ambush site. He had lived his life as fortune's bitch, it seemed, and oh how he had nearly laughed (for he did not know how to cry) at the sheer bitter irony that the woman he hoped would kill him should be an elf (such as he, such as Rinna) and _Dalish _(as his mother once had been – and as he would never be).

The small hairs all over Zevran's body rose on end and his senses keened to the approach of another towards him. With his eyes closed and head hanging downwards limply, he could still sense the change of light against his eyelids as a shadow fell across him. He both heard and felt the shifting of the great dog away from him a half inch as someone crouched before him. The sensation of eyes boring into him was not entirely pleasant, but Zevran did not react. He was unsure of what game he had fallen afoul of here, but knew enough to guess his best option was to do nothing and merely wait and see.

As it happened Zevran was not forced to endure too great a time caught in the maws of expectation and waiting. In but a moment there was a hand digging into the hair at the back of his scalp and jerking his head back so that a rather snub skinning knife could be pressed against the exposed arch of his throat.

_Finally! _Zevran tried not smile as he anticipated the glorious moment when his throat would be split open like the skin of an over ripe Laloo fruit and his life blood would feed this lonely, dusty road in dog-stinking Ferelden.

Except – braska! – it did not happen like that. 'I know you are awake.' A lilting female voice tickled his ear as the knife stroked feather light over his throat. 'Open your eyes. I have questions.'

*******

The strange man who had attacked them, but refused to kill her, was pretending to be unconscious still. Mahahlia could tell by the way Lethallin was watching him, muscles standing out corded with tension against his smooth brown pelt. Beyond that there was nothing to indicate the man was anything other than half-dead. As soon as she was sure Alistair was not going to die she left him and the others and walked over to the overturned cart that they had used to tie up the surviving attacker.

Lethallin was not happy; the mishmash of impressions she gained from the mabari seemed to involve the fact that the man smelled like death and despair. He smelled like prey but acted like predator and it made her hound both wary and hungry. Scratching her fingers against her friend's great head she gently nudged him in the haunch until the mabari conceded enough room for her to crouch before the man who hung from his wrists from the huge cartwheel. For a moment Mahahlia simply studied the captive. He was a glossy brown colour, yet his hair was a paler gold than her own honeyed shades and he was covered in markings stranger than any vallesin she had ever seen.

Drawing her skinning knife she decided to take matters back into her own hands. 'I know you are awake. Open your eyes I have questions.'

'Hmmm?' The man purred deep in his chest and blinked his eyes open. 'Ahh, and here I thought I would wake up dead – or not wake at all, as the case may be.'

'You ambushed and attacked us.' Much to Mahahlia's consternation the man was not even trying to lean his head away from her knife, snug against his throat. In fact he almost seemed to be leaning _into_ the edged blade.

'Yes this is true.' The man averred as if agreeing with her that the sky was blue and the sun rose every morning.

'Why?' Mahahlia demanded more confused by his calmness than anything else.

Her strange captive had the audacity to arch an eyebrow at her, lips almost twitching into a smirk. 'Ah well, because I was paid.'

'You were paid to ambush us?' Mahahlia wondered if perhaps she should let Leliana ask this man questions. She felt out of her depth already. Who would pay someone else to attack them; why would that individual not simply attack in person? Mahahlia suspected that this was some strange human trait, paying others to kill for them. Her own people were much more straightforward when it came to murder.

'Why?' She asked again, at a loss.

The man actually laughed; a bright and disturbingly merry sound. 'Why; because I am an assassin. This is what we assassins do, yes? We assassinate people.' The man's eyes danced away from her to where Leliana and Morrigan were edging closer to the cart and Alistair, still not completely free of the effects of his poisoning, hopped along after them, leaning on Morrigan's staff for balance. 'Or at least make a good stab at it.' The man laughed again.

Mahahlia exchanged perplexed glances with Lethallin, who whined in the back of his throat and cocked his head quizzically toward the self-professed assassin.

'Who hired you to kill us?'

'Ah now, there is a good question……and so I will give you a good answer.' Flicking shadowed eyes up to the glowering (and precariously balanced) Alistair the assassin smiled slyly. 'It was a rather taciturn fellow in the capital,' his smirk broadened darkly, '……Loghain I think his name was. Yes, _King _Loghain.'

'That traitor is not the king!' Alistair was almost red with fury, or possibly the effects of the poison.

'No?' The failed assassin widened his eyes and feigned confusion. 'This is interesting. In my country it is custom for the king to live in a palace, and he sits on a throne. This is how the people know he is a king and not merely a rather grandiose fellow wearing a crown. I met Loghain in the palace of Denerim; he sat upon the throne of Ferelden. Thus I assumed he was your king.' The man made a point of frowning thoughtfully, while still smirking up at Alistair. 'Perhaps here you do not have the same customs? Perhaps you Fereldens let anyone sit upon the throne?'

'How dare you……!' Alistair stopped himself from making an ill-advised lunge for the man and turned hotly to Mahahlia. 'Just kill him already!'

'Shut up shemlen.' Mahahlia glared up at Alistair briefly. She may not be all that confident in dealing with this possibly deranged would be killer, but even she had realised that the man called Loghain king fully expecting to get such a reaction. He was _baiting_ them; almost……almost as if he was trying to force her hand and make her kill him.

Mahahlia pulled the knife away. She stared at the man. 'Who are you?'

Awarding her with a charming smile that left his empty eyes dead as dust the man put a certain lilt into his voice that suggested he might have bowed to her had he not been tied up. 'My name is Zevran Arainai; I am a Crow of Antiva. And the pleasure, my lovely warden, is all mine, have no doubt.'

'_You_ are a Crow?' Leliana startled out of her silence, widening her eyes at the man and then looking to Mahahlia. 'I have heard of the Antivan Crows. They are infamous; the greatest guild of assassins in all Thedas.' She frowned down at their captured assassin sceptically. 'Or so I had heard.'

The man smiled up at Leliana. 'And you dear lady, are Orlesian? An Orlesian in Ferelden – how strange! How marvellous!'

'I……' Leliana flushed. 'I am Ferelden; I was merely born in Orlais.' She stammered growing more uncomfortable under the benign scrutiny of the assassin. Morrigan, who had remained uncharacteristically quiet until this moment bestirred herself to speak, looking down her imperious nose somewhat disdainfully at the assassin.

'Now we know who hired him, not that it should come as any real surprise, should we not kill the wretch and be off? We have an abomination to save and small fluffy kittens to rescue from trees, after all.'

With that all eyes turned to Mahahlia expectantly. Clenching her fist around the handle of her skinning knife, Mahahlia gritted her teeth. Why was it always she who had to make these decisions? Any one of her companions could have killed this man at any time since he had fallen without needing to ask her permission – instead they left the burden of taking his life to her alone. Almost against her will Mahahlia found herself staring into the abyss that resided in the assassin's eyes.

_He doesn't care_ a chill little voice whispered in her ear. Staring into that blandly interested face, sharp features inherently elven, everything else inherently _other _Mahahlia found herself hesitating. Killing the man was the sensible choice; he had admitted to being sent by Loghain to kill them. She knew he was a formidable fighter. Yet he hadn't killed her when he had the chance. He had used a non-lethal poison to incapacitate Alistair but not kill him – and he had done nothing at all to Morrigan, Leliana, or Lethallin. A dozen questions buzzed like swamp insects in her head.

_Why did he not kill her when she could not adequately defend herself? Why paralyse the stronger opponent but not finish the job when he had the chance? And who, or what, was "Rinna"? _

Rinna; that one word he had whispered in her ear the moment he had pushed his own sword into her hands and offered her the perfect chance to strike him dead. She didn't know what it meant, but somehow she knew it was important. It was the reason behind this assassin's apparent madness.

The question was on the tip of her tongue: _Who is Rinna? _But something, she did not know quite what, stopped her from speaking it. Something told her she would receive no answer in mixed company, or at this time. So she asked a different question instead. She barely even realised that she hoped that this question, just like the one she would not ask, would somehow provide her with the justification she needed; justification not to kill him.

'Now you have failed, will the Crow's send others to kill us?'

The man arched his brows in mild surprise at yet another question. 'Si. It will take time for the Crows back in Antiva to learn of my failure. Then it will take time to dispatch more assassins.' He looked at her thoughtfully. 'But there will be more. The Crows have a reputation to uphold. Loghain paid handsomely for your life grey warden; it was a sizable bounty – or so I hear.'

Releasing her breath in one whooshing sigh Mahahlia felt herself relax all over. 'That is all I needed to know.' She flicked her wrist and her skinning knife gnawed through the twist of rope keeping his arms lashed to the cartwheel. 'Get up,' she told the startled assassin. 'You're coming with us.'

******

There was a moment of stunned stillness as everyone in their odd crew tried to force themselves to believe their ears and then……

'_What?_' Alistair sliced his right arm through the air in a jerky cutting motion. 'This is just _insane_! Even for you! You can't seriously be suggesting we take _the Assassin _with us now!'

Alistair wanted to shake his fellow grey warden. The only thing stopping him was the fact that he knew it would do him no good and Mahahlia would likely kill him immediately after.

'I'm not suggesting anything.' Mahahlia snapped back. 'Once again you left the choice to me; I have chosen to keep the assassin with us. He may have more information about Loghain –and he can warn us about more Crows coming for us.'

Alistair stared at her in complete stunned incomprehension. 'Or he could wait until our backs are turned and stab us all! Or spy on us for Loghain, or better yet, wait until his murderous friends turn up and help them slaughter us all!'

'Tis a pain almost beyond forbearance,' Morrgian piped up from her lonely vigil standing under the shade of a gnarled oak, 'but I am forced to agree with Alistair. Kill the man and be done. This course is folly.'

'I'm not killing him.' Mahahlia insisted.

'You can't seriously want him with us! He tried to kill us – he poisoned me! He works for Loghain! How do you know he won't stab you in the back the minute you let your guard down?'

A derisive chuckle drew everyone's attention back to the assassin. 'Ah, my friend, you do not know much about the Crows, do you?' Still on the ground by the cart, his wrists still bound even if he was no longer pinned to the wheel, the elven assassin squinted up at Alistair, somehow managing to infuse the look with something of a leer despite the sun in his eyes and the awkwardness of his position.

Alistair bristled and his hand went to the pommel of his sword strung behind his back. 'I'm not your friend – and anyway, who said you could talk? We're talking _about_ you, not to you.'

Ignoring this comment completely the assassin carried on speaking anyway. 'In answer to your question my not-friend Alistair of the Grey Wardens, if any crows should find me alive in your company they will suspect I have betrayed them and kill me as swiftly as they kill you,' he paused and grimaced, 'Or considerably less swiftly and much more horribly.' The assassin, Zevran, sighed. 'That is how this sort of thing works, I am afraid to say.'

'You would say that,' Alistair retorted hotly. 'You just don't want to die.'

The crow chuckled, 'Ah death is……an occupational hazard for a Crow, which is interesting as it also so happens to be a Crow's entire occupation.' The lunatic laughed shortly. 'Regardless death is not something I waste much time worrying about one way or the other.' He eyed Alistair and Mahahlia in turn. 'It is simple. Having failed in my attempt to kill you, and sadly breaking the Crows perfect record, my life is now forfeit. If you do not kill me the Crows will. So there is very little profit in trying to kill you now, even if I had the opportunity.'

'What about Loghain – you work for him, don't you?' Alistair was beginning to sound somewhat harried. He didn't like that this evil smarmy assassin person was being so bloody _reasonable_ about everything. It made it rather hard to advocate killing him while he sat on the dusty ground tied up and unarmed.

'Well now there is the thing,' the assassin chirped. 'Your Loghain merely hired the services of the Antivan Crows, who in turn sent me to fulfil the contract. It is the Crows who receive the payment for your deaths, not I. So again there is very little reason for me to kill you now that I have already failed once.'

'Are you trying to suggest that you receive no payment for this?' Morrigan demanded incredulously. 'Are you some manner of slave, or just terribly stupid, I wonder?'

Rather than being offended the crow laughed and beamed up at Morrigan. 'Well! I am an elf, am I not?'

Morrigan cocked her head to the side quizzically. 'Tis true you appear to be an elf, however whether you are implying this explains your servile nature or innate stupidity I could not begin to guess.'

'Alright enough,' Alistair spoke up swiftly when he caught the sudden narrowing of Mahahlia's eyes. While he suspected her insistence on sparing the assassin was because he was an elf Alistair also knew better than to cross the Dalish warden. Mostly however he didn't want this to turn into another elves against humans debacle. Almost groaning with frustration he looked from the patiently smiling assassin to Mahahlia, who was still holding on to the loose end of the frayed rope that she had cut from the cart –the rope that was still mostly wrapped around the assassin's wrists. 'You win.' He told his fellow warden. 'But if he tries anything I will kill him. Got that?' Alistair switched his glare to the assassin who simply laughed brightly.

'Ah you have my word: no more trying to kill grey wardens for Zevran.' The assassin rose to his feet as Mahahlia did, seeming completely unconcerned that he was tethered to her by a length of rope. 'Now did I hear that we are going to a tower; a magi tower?' The insane assassin beamed at each party member in turn, obviously deciding not to dwell on the fact that he had just tried to kill them. 'This is marvellous! I have always wanted to go to one of those.' He dropped his voice, cheerfully conspiratorial. 'I have heard that the mages indulge in wild midnight orgies on nights with a full moon - and this is something I must see for myself!'


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter Twenty: Fade To Grey Pt One:**

Large, disfigured, misshapen _things _poured out of the open doorway in the long, curving corridor of the Circle Tower's first floor. The creatures had tapering clawed hands and gangly arms, there skin cracked and red, mouths distended in grimaces of rage and pain and madness.

'Right someone ordered more killing!' Alistair, oddly chipper in combat when there were no moral quandaries to negotiate, brandished his shield and sword and readied a charge. He slammed into the first of the abominations with enough force to send the thing staggering back into its comrades. Mahahlia, already sliding along the wall to get into position, levelled a savage kick at the closest abomination with the intention of buckling its knee (assuming these things had legs under the tattered remnants of magi robes). The thing stumbled and Alistair was ready, cleaving the fiend's head clean off its shoulders.

'Watch out for exploding corpses,' Alistair called as the abomination dropped to the already scorched stone floor of the corridor. Heeding his warning Mahahlia nimbly jumped back out of the way as the abomination's corpse burned up in a noisy hiss of sulphur. Eventually the two wardens managed to dispatch the remaining abominations working surprisingly well together considering they had barely spoken a civil word to one another in twenty-four hours. In the aftermath of the skirmish the corridor stank of greasy ash and rotten eggs. Alistair and Mahahlia stood facing each other, leaning on the curving tower walls for support, as they caught their breath.

'How many more of these things do you think we'll have to face?' Alistair asked conversationally as he wiped encrusted ash and filth from the face of his dinted shield. Mahahlia arched an eyebrow at him dryly and tucked an errant strand of hair that had escaped from her single braid behind one pointed ear.

'That depends; how many floors does this tower have?'

'Four I think.' Alistair could feel a slight smile touching his lips, one answered in the bright sky blue glint in his fellow warden's eyes.

'In that case, shemlen, I would say……a lot.' Alistair laughed, a much by the wry certainty that chaos would find them as for the words. Mahahlia smiled broadly, dimpling her cheeks. Then keeping her dar'misu in hand Mahahlia straightened up and stepped over the blackened husk of one of the abominations before passing Alistair to disappear around the curve of the corridor. A moment later she returned with the assassin in tow and Alistair felt his mood darken.

It was bad enough that they were sealed into the tower, which just so happened to be besieged by demons and abominations, but oh yes, Mahahlia had to_ insist_ on taking her pet assassin with them. What's more, considering it was just the two of them against a tower full of fiends Alistair could tell his fellow grey warden was going to suggest untying the assassin's hands and letting him have a weapon so he could fight. The really galling thing about it all was that, given the circumstances and the fact that the assassin was just as trapped as they were, Alistair couldn't think of a good reason not to let him fight.

Alistair glared at the assassin who stood docile and patient just behind Mahahlia a disarmingly mild expression on his smug face. The assassin met his glare with a blade smile and then surveyed the charred remnants on the ground at their feet.

'You have had fun I see.' If the sight of genuine abominations bothered the assassin he did not show it. 'Is being a grey warden usually this exciting?'

'Shut up.' Alistair gritted his teeth. 'You're not allowed to talk.'

This had been a unanimous decree of the party decided within an hour of Mahahlia's decision to keep the assassin with them. This also meant that they had all been subjected to an hour of the slimy bastard's innuendo, sly barbs, and strangely probing questions and by the end of that hour Morrigan wanted to chop out his tongue and feed it to the birds and even Leliana was notably lacking in objection to this suggestion. As a compromise the assassin had been ordered to keep silent except when spoken to. Oddly right up to this moment the elf had actually kept to that order.

'Shemlen,' Mahahlia frowned at him in quiet warning before tugging gently on the loose end of the rope used to bind the Antivan's wrists and hands. As he was pulled along in her wake the damned bastard actually had the audacity to wink at him.

'Ah my friend, you appear to have……demon on your face.'

Instantly Alistair's hand went to his cheek, where a large smudge of congealing abomination muck flaked off his skin under his fingers. Blushing furiously Alistair gritted his teeth and glared at the utter bastard. 'It's an abomination, not a demon.'

Just to remind the smarmy elf who was in charge here Alistair shoved him in the back with his shield causing the smaller, lighter man to stumble. The elf righted his balance within a second and when he looked over his shoulder flashed Alistair a brilliantly grin somewhat reminiscent of a wolf's snarl, but thankfully didn't say anything as he followed a few steps behind Mahahlia like a puppy on a lead.

The three of them trudged on in silence for a few more feet of endless corridor and every time they passed one of the many, many statues of Andraste lining the walls Alistair fought back a flinch of claustrophobia; he kept thinking that the damned statues were moving, or worse – watching him. It was eerie and unsettling, as was the near perfect silence of the tower around them. Alistair was beginning to feel they were here on a fool's errand, surely no one could have survived all this.

Keeping to the rear so he could keep an eye on the damned assassin while Mahahlia took her usual position on point Alistair was just passing one of the many wooden doors leading into the long apprentice dormitories, when said door suddenly flew open, smacking him in the face.

'Ooof!'

Staggering back Alistair's training snapped into focus and he had his shield up to protect his head and sword half upraised when the abomination slammed him into the opposing wall, knocking all the air from his lungs. The smell of sulphur was almost unbearable, filling his nose as he thrashed wildly to break the creature's grip on him. He stared into a twisted face and single wild eye; flesh raw and sickly pink looked like melted candle-wax as it dribbled in fleshy runnels, sagging from once human bones. The abomination opened his mouth and howled; a monstrous inhuman sound.

Alistair managed to twist to the side slightly, which gave him the leverage he needed to swing his arm and bat the abomination away with his trusty shield. As he did so, shoving groggily away from the wall he saw that the three of them had stumbled into an ambush; a small horde of creatures poured through out into the corridor from both directions converging on them.

Mahahlia was caught between an abomination and two strange wraith-like things with glowing burned coal eyes and almost serpentine head. These new horrors looked almost as though they were on fire and could only be some sort of demon. Mahahlia ducked under the lunging reach of one of the demon-things and dived under its legs only to be slapped about a foot across the floor of the corridor by a lucky swipe from the abomination. Alistair lurched forward, intent on helping his fellow warden, and was promptly smashed into the wall again as one of the demons seeped up from the very flagstones of the floor beside him and belted him with the force of a sack of bricks.

'I can feel your rage mortal!'

Alistair had never seen a true demon before, let alone heard one speak, and now that he had both seen and heard one he rather wished he could return to a state of ignorance. Shoved up against the wall cheek first with the demon's hand gripping the back of his skull Alistair hissed as the demon's touch burned against his scalp. He wondered how long it would take for his head to pop like a grape between the stone wall and the demon's brute strength. He tried to swipe behind him with his sword but the angle was all wrong and his shield was caught, pinioned like his other arm, between his torso and the wall.

'Feed me! Fight me! Rage against me!' If pure mindless aggression had a voice, it would sound like this demon. As Alistair struggled he could feel something like fire and acid seeping into his pores, making him see red as he fought to be free. Through clouded vision he could see Mahahlia on the floor of the tower corridor, kicking out at the fiends menacing her. She released a furious piercing cry, like that of an eagle, when one of the monsters reached down to yank on a huge fistful of her hair, dragging her half upright and then tossing her into the wall.

Roaring his rage Alistair pushed away from the wall with his free hand, letting his sword drop to the floor. Shoving backwards with all his weight he dislodged the rage demon's grip on him, twisted smoothly around, grabbed the scalding hot and oddly rubbery flesh of the demon and slammed the vile creature into the opposing wall.

'Two can play at that game!' Savage red hot anger infused Alistair with a bitter sort of strength as he repeatedly slammed the monster's head into the wall until the Fade fiend began to dissolve into motes of black and acrid dust. Not waiting to watch the demon completely disintegrate Alistair turned back to retrieve his sword……only to find it wasn't where he'd dropped it.

Panic seared through him and Alistair whipped his head around to where Mahahlia was grappling with the abomination. The creature had caught her from behind and had literally lifted her off her feet. She looked like a child dangling from the cage of the fiend's overlong arms, her legs kicking in a futile attempt to get free. Mahahlia had lost her dar'misu, one of the daggers was still lodged in the back of the rapidly disintegrating body of a fallen demon, the other glinted dully in the torchlight from a doorway. Alistair moved forward, even without a sword, and as he did so Mahahlia bit back another cry of rage and pain as the abomination ducked its foul head and bit deep into her shoulder.

Alistair was tackled from the side by another rage demon, but he was ready for such an attack and slammed his shield into the creature's head, pounding the riveted steel into the fiend's face three times; each blow hard enough to wrench the muscles of his arms. Mahahlia was still caught in the abomination's clutches kicking and struggling but unable to break free. Her shoulder bled freely. Alistair sidestepped considering the best position to launch a shield attack. Then suddenly the abomination reared back again. The creature staggered, head thrown back at an unnatural angle. Mahahlia kicked with both legs and managed finally to fight out of the abomination's clutches.

It was only then, as Alistair pulled Mahahlia to her feet, that he saw the length of rope strung across the abomination's throat forcing the fiend's spine to bow backward at what could only be called a decidedly painful angle. Still, Alistair figured that the bad angle was probably less painful than the sword point that erupted out of the abomination's chest a moment before it released an evil howl, writhed like a fish, twisted around, lunged for its attacker, and ended up with a dar'misu wedged into its one remaining eye.

'Ah now _that _was exhilarating!' A melodious yet somehow cawing laugh offended Alistair's ears and then, watching the abomination fall, Alistair caught his first glimpse of their "rescuer".

'Hey!' Alistair wasn't sure what he'd planned to say exactly as the damned assassin calmly wrenched the dar'misu out of the fiend's skull, jumped over the crumpled corpse, and oozed over to the two wardens as the creature blew up messily behind him. Smug smirk firmly in place the Antivan held Mahahlia's dagger out to her laid across the bed of his palms as if offering her the greatest of Rivaini gemstones, 'For you, dear warden.'

Rolling her shoulder, the one the abomination had taken a bite out of, Mahahlia took back the weapon quite calmly. 'Thank you.'

Alistair stared from the remains of the abomination to the now completely unbound assassin. 'You -!' His eyes narrowed as he recognised his sword sitting amid the smouldering ashes. 'You stole my sword!'

'I did not.' The slimy bastard had the gall to sound affronted. 'You dropped it.'

Tatters of the rope still clung to one dark skinned wrist and Alistair noticed that the cords had appeared to have been hacked away roughly instead of smoothly cut; rope burns were also clearly evident on the assassin's skin. Alistair scowled, 'Oh great, now how are we going to tie you up?'

The assassin's entire face broke out in a huge, lascivious grin at that but before he could say something that would no doubt make Alistair want to kill him before dying of mortification himself, Mahahlia returned from looting the remains of the fallen abomination. She had retrieved her other dar'misu and Alistair's long sword. She handed Alistair his sword and then, to Alistair's extreme annoyance, handed one of her dar'misu to the Antivan. 'Now he's free he can fight. We'll need him.'

'You can't give him a blade!' Alistair goggled. 'He'll stab us both in the back.'

'No he won't.' Mahahlia did not look at Alistair and instead kept her steady gaze on the other elf. Smiling inscrutably the bastard Crow accepted the dar'misu without a word and waited for Mahahlia to speak again. 'He's trapped here just like we are. Even if he planned to turn on us, it would be stupid to do so now when his chances of survival alone against a tower of monsters are next to none.'

'Fine,' Alistair grumbled deliberately not looking at the butter bland but still smug expression on the Antivan bastard's face. 'But he takes point – I'm not letting him out of my sight.'

The assassin chuckled, 'Ah I do so enjoy being ogled by a handsome man.'


End file.
